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
Copyright © Terry Ireland | Year Posted 2022
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