The First Responders

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Watching Jon Stewart addressing a minimally attended (by congress) congressional committee prompted me to write the following poem. By all appearances, to me, Congress, as a whole, cares only about congress and not we the people who elect them. Are we fools? I think so.

The First Responders

By Franklin Price

6/12/2019


The Day was nine-eleven, the year two thousand one

Twin towers in Manhattan, down before the setting sun

Each was penetrated, by a commercial highjacked plane

Flown by U.S. hating terrorists, who no longer would refrain.


Alarms were sounded for the scene, first reponders made their way

Their jobs to rescue anyone still living on that day

They came for the thousands, and risked their life and limb

They did everything they could, until the towers fell on them


More came as the dust cloud cleared, to search through the debris

Exposed to poison residue, to set survivors free

First responders and survivors left, when search and rescue done

Replaced by clean-up searchers, until all they found was none.


The years have passed, not memories, or the long term health effect,

To the crews that first responded and the lives that still connect.

Exposure sickened many. Now they're gone or on their way.

They should not have to bear the cost, for what happened on that day.


The terrorists would not have come, to do the bad they did.

Were we not the U.S.A. who had not run or hid

Would not have knocked the towers down and left new vets in place

Was the modern day Pearl Harbor for the war which we now face


We are the world's protector whether we like it or not

Have been, since the last great war, or have we now forgot

Must take care of all our vets, no matter how they came to be

The ones made when the towers fell, or those militarily


The U.S.A. is different than other countries on this earth

Our declaration said it, when it was written at our birth.

It's best we not forget that, if we care that's who we are

It's time that others paid for just a few rounds at the bar.

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