Soldiers
New clothes, sore feet
The assault courses
The food and fun
And sweet sleep
Oblivion
And songs sung
The friends and foes
And drills, parades
The range, the jokes
And sergeant’s ways
The boredom, cold
And washing down
The cleaning polish
The days in town
The girls that smile
And kissed with ease
The beer, sore heads
The drunken fights
The duty, guarding
Smells and sights
The journeys, boats and
Planes, the drill, baggage
Flames, fear, shock and hills
Ropes and smells, the tents,
The letters sent
And breaks in towns
The girls that smile
The dressing down
The bomb, the shot
The next man down
The radio shouts
And screaming sounds
Perfume of fresh blood and wounds
The horror, grief, the smell
The pounding sound
The hell, the girls which
Lie on ground
With dolls and broken limbs
And sounds of mother’s grief
Mute triggers ease and quick recoil
The bullets shells strewn on the soil
Of hearts and minds
And guilt and pain
The wounds so deep that will remain
Returning home
The sounds and smells
That changed and lost
The feelings felt
The girls whose laughs
Like cold death knells
The beer and drugs
For pain to numb
The curtain drawn to block the Sun
The wasting days to wish away
The pills and bottles
Attempts once made
And sleep so deep
Oblivion
Beneath the covers
Of the mud
With brothers now
Made in blood
Like this poem Fitz. Very moving.