World War 1, and World War 2
It's now 2024, and it's affecting you and I
Korea, Vietnam, the Balkans, Ukraine
No wonder this planet's not been invaded
Out there must think, they're all insane
From our inside looking inside, daily thoughts
With people we've grown with, taking us to
It's history, simple history, the world now caught
Just what in the hell do their minds think through
To the United Nations, someone stand tall
Now start showing clips of a world without war
Children in playgrounds, running around at will
To be never now like the Ukraine, a minorities spill
It's high time, that all the powers that are
From their neighborhood's they travel, to be
Simply observe, their families so spread around
Is it your decisions, that they'll no longer see
The worlds heading to an infamous Chess game
Where leading players simply haven't a clue
One thing that should remind them, totally
It's not your world to sanction it's spew!
spent too much time on my
quest for global domination
might have forgotten for only a time what it means to be a pawn card in the deck.
So shuffled up and dealt to deal with the hustle and shuffle.
The unnatural shifts we call society.
It played out last time the deck was stacked and look at that
we all got another throw of it.
Everyone wants to be the deck builder or master,
but who wrote the flavor text?
The intelligent among us no doubt can quote in their parlor message boards,
glowing screen Balkans,
accomplishing nothing
yet proving even less
Women from Serbia,
Ukraine, Serbia, the Balkans
Have the most beautiful eyes
Some of the most beautiful model
Comes from these areas.
Is war coming?
The sky is subdued, military jets scream across awful thunder.
Soldiers in the wood, guns at the ready, the dog took fright
disappeared in the bushes.
Deep silence walked past them ignored my greetings
am I the target? Vultures circled around, sensing a meal.
With a sharp order from an officer, the soldiers march eastward.
The dog came back from its hiding place looking shameful.
The warning of war is coming this way sure as lightning
60 years of peace- except the Balkans- we are spooked.
People of Europe hence the scramble to find a way back home,
where they will feel safe huddled together
hoping; the war will not affect them.
The news speaks about patriotism, time to take sides.
When the war is over, those who chose wrongly will be hanged
on the winning side, wave flags and feel heroic.
The French word for ‘cockroach’ is ‘le cafard’.
In some contexts it can mean ‘depression’.
But for the soldiers always standing guard,
‘Avoir le cafard’ refers to boredom.
I’ve heard war has been described as follows:
“Ninety percent boredom, the rest: TERROR”.
It’s true for those hiding in their hollows,
Whether combatant or stretcher-bearer.
My times in combat zones weren’t too awful.
I heard the occasional “BOOM!” or “CRACK!”.
Of friends that I knew that went to Mosul,
Everyone (Some shrapnel wounds) made it back.
But I knew some who never came back home;
At least one who suicided at home.
I somehow missed the nineties
As far as pop culture was concerned
I spent a lot of it overseas
Watching as the Balkans burned
I had learned Russian for the Army
But the Russian Bear was no longer wild
About the time they reunited Germany
I gained a brand new wife and child
With the fall of the Soviet Union
I thought the world might finely be sane
Then I cross trained into Serbo-Croatian
As Yugoslavia went up in flame
The Army was not a free ride
I did several deployment rotations
Monitoring war crimes like genocide
Or in Macedonia with the United Nations
The nineties ended quietly
At least from what I remember
I was focused then on family
Until that fatal 11 September
That homeless guy out on the corner,
Carrying a sign that says he’s hungry;
Maybe he’s just a drunk or a ‘stoner’,
But he might be that one-out-of-three.
That one-out-of-three is a veteran,
Who in uniform served his country.
There’s a good chance he has an addiction,
Or is still suffering from PTSD.
One out of three of those ones-out-of-three
Fought in one of America’s wars.
Did he scream on a beach in Normandy,
Or did he at Inchon go ashore.
Did he hunt Charlie in a rice paddy?
Was he in the Balkans, or lost in the sand?
One out of three of those ones-out-of-three,
Were the heroes who once took a stand.
If you can spare a few dollars, then feed them.
If not, at least hear what they say.
Their country may no longer need them,
But they don’t deserve to be thrown away.
They might not have all bled in battle,
But each one came home a casualty.
With your help, they may someday be able
To leave the ranks of the one-out-of-three.
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