The child has run away
For a blighted cause today
He’s joined a crooked queue
Of brothers twitchy and new
For a leader they’ve never met
He makes them all a terrible bet
Prove you’re a man, brave and strong
Your kinfolk’ll love you as the day is long
They’ll make you monoliths ten feet tall
Brass plaques, street names and all
If you’ll go out and point your gun
Pull the trigger on dirty old Hun
Ruskie, Jap, Nip, Ching or Arab to blame
Whatever the current contestant’s name
Off the child goes, sure he’s an adult
Protecting his country without a fault
So he trains, learns and obeys
“Yes Sir, no Sir,” the right words he says
Jumps and spins and sharply salutes
Ready to savage all those foreigner brutes
Sent on a boat with sweat-stained mates
Talking up tough, kill everyone we hates
The young boy imagines he’s grown to a man
A warrior, a fighter and a dastardly plan
Overseas travel, true glory and gore
Saving my comrades, country and more
With a bang, a slash and a mighty blow
The enemy’ll run, never again to show
The world’ll be safer, peaceful and kind
From our actions, I know you’ll find
And up goes his name on pedestals so bright
Forever engraved, remembered and right
But we landed in muck, trudged through swamp
The food’s no better and clothing is damp
Walking forever, no enemy around
Till day six when the mines we found
Lost feet, arms, guts and whole mates
Forced to march on, no logical debates
Came we upon the enemy’s camp, they said
But just a village, livestock all dead
Women pleading us to save their kid
But won’t tell us where their men is hid
So we shot a few, get ‘em up talking
They didn’t know so we kept on walking
After burning their houses, corrals and crops
And firing our volleys till every child drops
Our rations are now low, stinking so rotten
Though my vomit’s not from the illness I’ve gotten
But from grief and all the bloody dead waste
All the good people we’ve gunned and chased
Minding their own damned business and lives
While we interfere between husbands and wives
Simple good folk, never a bad word
We treat them like a low-down dog turd
Would we do that to our own kin back home?
No we wouldn’t; we’d leave them alone
But for this big man, his pedestal bright shines
Spilling his phlegm, on brash words he dines
For his loud lies, loose lipped stories
Of enemies abroad and whigs hate tories
Hell, it took me fifty years of PTSD
Unravelling my trauma from a worn out chesty
And finding the truth of a war-loving world
File by file the dirty deeds are unfurled
Found we fought no enemy, not for our nation
Was a senseless pantomime for a man’s libation
Yes, I’ve come to see there’s no enemy out there
Just our own demons we want others to bear
‘Stead of taking charge of the victim within
We spew invective, wage wars we never can win
The child left for glory in yellow Viet Nam
Took a long time to return a full-known man.
By Philip J Bradbury – philipjbradbury.com
Carindale Writers Group 