Silence of the Vets

You wonder why I will not speak
My own sweet mother to
And tell you how it was for me
When I was far from you

The words stick in my aching throat
I cannot make you know
How it felt for your dear boy
To through the mine fields go

Can’t tell you when the snipers took
My buddy, so damn near
His shoulder brushed me as he fell
I shit myself from fear

There isn’t any way to say
The misery I saw
The misery I helped to make
Defender of the law

By using methods so perverse
That they should never legal be
Keeping the enemy at bay
Preserving your reality

The one that thinks good hearted men
Their officers respect
And in return those officers
Never their men neglect

That wiser heads than theirs
Strategic council have conferred
That to dishonor by such men
Death’s instantly…