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A Memorial Day Poem ...

DustDevil

Well-known member
...one I wrote a few years back; I hope its worthy.

The Fighting American
on Freedom's Battlefield

They're not players on a field of sport nor actors on a stage,
for real is the dying, the bloodshed and the rage.
They didn't come here hoping to carry away the spoils,
the fruit of others' labor or the evidence of their toils.
And it isn't bigotry or hatred for the color of enemies' skin,
but belligerence toward Tyranny, that fires One from within.
Once, for the cause of Freedom --keeping Slavery at bay--
opposed in battle, were cousins and brothers,
but their children are friends, today.
Whether native-born, of a lineage from past centuries,
or newly-arrived from the shores of Oppression, seeking to be free;
for this Republic, unique among nations established upon the Earth,
they'll defend with their lives, our God-given rights, which honor individual worth.
Talk of Freedom isn't idle, nor does to speak of it come cheap...
the Ones who've paid, their bodies are laid below the Sod and beneath the Deep.
I pray we do not lose the sense or knowledge of its cost;
this Last Place to Stand on Liberty's Land...
a hell of a pity, if to us She were lost.



By Daniel P. Ward for Memorial Day 2001
 

DustDevil

Well-known member
Thanks...I wish I could post the picture of my great-uncle, Ralph O. Grubbs, to go along with it. I was thinking about him and it got me to thinking about all those who lay it on the line, so I started writing down what was coming to mind. He spent the rest of his life, after June 1944 paralyzed on his whole right side, caused by shrapnel from a German 88 in the hedgerow fighting at Normandy. We have a picture of he and his nephew-and my Dad's cousin, Garland Ferguson (not much difference in their ages)at home on leave in Streetman,TX. Both were fit, healthy young men, sharply in uniform. Garland spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
 
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