My father's military service was cut short because of medical issues, but in many ways his heart remained there with his comrades. He wrote many poems remembering who they were, wondering where they had gone and questioning why it had all come to this.
Why?
What are they fighting for?
Why do they die?
Why do they willingly rise
To meet the foe
Who sound the battle cry?
Theirs was the home,
The wheat fields and the sea,
The towering pinnacles that cities make,
The factory's roar, the smelting ore;
To them - not idle blasphemy.
Theirs the right to dream;
To watch the dappled sky
That evening makes for dreamer's sakes,
To watch a small child in his play;
These do not think to die.
Theirs the right to scheme;
To fashion lives in liberty.
To raise a cow; to shape a plow;
To follow it along a furrow,
This was to them Democracy.
Theirs was the sky;
No boundaries here they knew
Preventing them from conquering it;
To satisfy for reaching vagrant minds
Into every wind they flew.
And still they fly,
Escheloned in battleship that seems
A parody to man's constructive mind;
To Universities and pastoral simplicities.
And still they die, paradoxical to dreams.
John O. Benson
Freedom is so full of paradox. Soldiers who believe so deeply in our freedom that they are willing to march, fly, or sail into enemy fire to maintain something they will never again experience. They did that for me. They did that so I could whine and complain about people not taking care of me....not that they thought I would do such a thing. They died so I could burn their flag...not that they thought I would be capable of such a travesty. They sacrificed so I could blaspheme and slander, calling it speech.....not thinking there would be such perversion. What have we done?! Have we stumbled so far off base that logic has turned to lunacy? Freedom is a gift and a responsibility...not something to be toyed with. These men and women have given me so much and expected so little, for me to give so little and expect so much. I do wish we all understood and revered your sacrifice so much more. Thank you veterans!
