Barbara Peckham Poet Free verse

To a Veteran

Thank you for your faith
In the country you so love
That you’d offer up your life
In a cataclysmic strife.
Thank you for your courage
Although you shook inside.
You did all that was needed
No matter what the price.
The noise of guns and mortar
Convulsed the fetid air
You saw beloved comrades
Lie bleeding at your side.
You suffered pain and conflict
When required to kill another
Against what you’d been taught,
To love, not hate, your brother.
We call you strong and brave, 
And admire your fortitude.
But the toll that it has taken
Is in your mind and soul.
To kill for love of country
And the freedoms we possess
Takes strength we can’t imagine
And thanks are not enough.

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Paulette Calasibetta July 8, 2023 at 4:57 AM Barbara, your poems are so heartfelt and pay so much tribute to those who served our country and lost their lives so we could live in freedom. Thank You! Paulette

Robert L. Hinshaw August 27, 2021 at 1:02 PM A wonderful tribute to Vets, Barbara! Very insightful indeed - Bob H Barbara Peckham August 27, 2021 at 8:20 PM We can never know, if we haven't been there, how deeply it must affect servicemen for the rest of their lives. I think not only about those who lost their lives, but of the many who suffered terrible wounds to bodies and soul

Rico Leffanta August 27, 2021 at 11:58 AM I fav'd this one and hope they include it in their anthology! Too bad young people today can not meet veterans of the Bataan Death March . . . . Barbara Peckham August 27, 2021 at 8:19 PM Thanks so much, Rico. As I said in another comment.it brings me back to the coda in my trilogy, "Letter to a Soldier." Heartbreaking!

L Milton Hankins August 26, 2021 at 9:28 PM Indeed, they are not, Barbara. I was thinking today of the young people killed at the gate of Kabul airport. They thought they were coming home soon, but now....they will come home only in a government box. So heart-rendingly sad! None of them thought it would come to this. Barbara Peckham August 27, 2021 at 8:22 PM I thought I just replied to this, but, as often happens to me, it seems to have disappeared. Maybe it will come up twice! I was thinking of those in Afghanistan, those twelve killed and the others wounded and just as they were to come home. Heartbreaking! Makes me hark back to the coda in my trilogy "Letter to a Soldier."