Being Nonexistent

For forty years she stood there On watch every single hour One tentacle of defence against A perceived enemy power. There is now a new golf course Where the aerial field once stood They’ve long thinned and chopped It’s once concealing wood. The Ops Block is the Club House, The security cage and fences gone, Presumably they removed the minefield That she used to stand upon. Very little recognisable now Of the base that once had been Only through the eyes of memory Can the Drill Square be seen. Disappearing under housing, An estate of luxury homes Occupying the spaces where Guards and dogs once roamed Cold War Warriors they called us Behind our barbed wire fence Our very existence denied but An essential of our defence. Told we wouldn’t be coming home If the Cold War turned hot And nobody dared estimate The survival time we’d got. Of course it didn’t happen Barriers came tumbling down Our Regiment decommissioned Weeds cover the parade ground. Forty years of non existence erased, Covered over by new households We are part of a Secret History As the uneasy peace still holds. Forty years she stood there And I am very proud of course That for a short while I did my bit In that essential non existent force