Honor

When he left for a war of man,
he was really just a boy.
But it was for a nations honor,
and 'cause humans are just toys.
They stripped him of his freedom,
gave him a uniform,
Made him just a cloud,
in a giant, gathering storm.

They sailed on an endless sea,
to a place called paradise.
Filled with blood-hungry enemy,
and endless rain, and lice.
As soon as they were ashore,
still rocking on their feet,
they had to dig out foxholes.
For that's where they would sleep.

March in single file,
keep your eyes cast to the ground.
For the enemy's feet are weightless.
They can kill without a sound.
Our friend here was a poet,
a writer by trade.
He wrote endless letters never sent,
for the rain washed them away.

The rain broke their spirits,
the bombing murdered sleep.
The torture of their hunger,
was enough to make them weep.
The poet did gain something:
a true and great friend.
He was a young, lanky fellow,
who'd be grinning 'till he met his end.
Mother's sons were murdered,
their blood staining the grass.

Fathers were bombed in their sleep,
their bodies ripped in half.
"Men are expendable,"
thought the poet, who was stunned.
"It's not right to kill each other."
Yet he was clutching his gun.
The enemy stopped being human,
as the days and weeks dragged by.

They left behind their feelings,
all but the hatred boiling inside.
The men died of malaria,
and from the enemy's guns.
Is this a countries honor?
Men face-down in the mud?
Every night the sky was aflame,
roaring with the crash of falling trees.

The marines' ears and heads rang,
from the scream of the artillery.
There was silence as the sun rose,
from the men who survived the night.
For there were dead men lying everywhere,
their bodies boiling in the morning light.
The poet's friend would crack a joke,
as he would again and again,
trying to lighten the dark mood,
of the brokenhearted men.

His friend was tall and dark,
with a wide sloping brow.
His grin was always easy,
and his laugh was always loud.
He was youthful and carefree,
said the war was a game he was playing.
But when the sky flashed in the dead of the night,
The poet always heard him praying.

On the days when all was quiet,
there were good times to be had.
Day's filled with jokes, stories, pranks,
and laughter from the comrades.
But disease took away those days,
when the poet fell ill.
He shook with malaria,
yet he manned his gun still.

When the disease left him,
he thanked the Lord in the sky,
but as he watching his comrades fall,
he asked, "Why didn't you let me die?"
The men killed to live but begged to die,
there was no feeling in their eyes.
A bitter laugh from a parched throat.
Kids old before their time.

They were the orphans of a nation,
because no one seemed to care.
People carried on their pointless lives,
thinking they had it unfair.
How could they go back home,
after doing what they'd done?
How could they return to their families,
and to life without a gun?

The poet looked around,
at the weary faces of his friends.
The war had swept away a generation,
of young, eager men.
The enemy would fight till the last man,
they would kill with a hateful cry.
For the honor of their country,
they were unafraid to die.
In the thick of the fight, on an endless night,
a bullet took the poets friend.

He died in a red puddle,
all alone,
like a thousand nameless men.
The poet fell soon after,
because he could take no more.
He lost his will to live.
He was done with the goddamn war.
He was buried in the place he hated,
along with all his friends.
On the island for all eternity,
never to go home again.
Under the earth in these islands,
lies a generation of men.

Their faces are not remembered,
but they will never be forgotten.
So next time your at paradise,
Show respect for the mud,
for it has been hallowed,
by all of their blood