The Patriot

He was born when time itself was changing.
The nations of the world were rearranging.
For a cause not very clear from the start,
His country would soon be torn apart.
 
When he was just a boy more trouble began,
As his country went to war once again.
He was taught how to fight when only a teen,
But inside he did not really want to be mean.
 
Mother had raised him to be gentle and kind.
Now he was taught to leave all that behind.
Learn to kill with both bullet and knife,
To survive he must take his enemies life.
 
As the teachings of mother and leader did clash,
His mind could not sort the truth from the trash,
And his friends all seemed so eager to fight.
It was no longer a question of wrong or right.
 
He was shipped with his friends out to the front,
Where he would join in life’s most dangerous hunt.
With his weapons all around him he waited in fear.
Each day stretching out till it seemed like a year.
 
He remembered how mother had taught him to pray,
Repeating each prayer at least ten times a day.
His family meant more now than ever before.
It was for them that he was fighting this war.
 
Then his friends started singing a new battle song.
They asked him if he thought the war could be wrong?
Confused and bewildered he prayed as bombs fell.
Surely this place can be no worse than hell.
 
Then the word was passed it was time to begin.
A cold chill spread through him and over his skin.
Marching to the sounds and smell of the fight,
He feared he would not live through the night.
 
The next morning would find so much less of mankind,
For all the weapons had worked as they were designed.
And this patriotic young man would never walk back,
To see his mother or his family that lived in Iraq.
 
By AFS