Sent to me by James Hennessey:
For this grand and beautiful Memorial Day ...
by Gary Jacobson © today
Blessed be my gallant brothers of the sword
Who fought in valiant courage with one accord
Displaying utmost honorable bravery
Sowing seeds to peoples of the earth of democracy
Reap now from our hearts your harvest of richest reward
On this Memorial Day receive your nation's grateful award.
O, brave soldier, who fought for me
Who kept me royally free ...
America still crowned with diadems of liberty
With honored glory still commendatory because of thee...
What has been your destiny?
What has been made of your gallant history?
What kind of future has your glorious action brought
What have you of life wrought?
What has been your life's story?
For your service, be ye ever proud of the memory!
Receive now our heartfelt thanks benedictory.
Here now is your grand and noble legacy?
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A Soldier's LEGACY
by Gary Jacobson © 1999
http://namtour.com/warrior.html
Life’s experience is a soldier's legacy
But not of lands or gold consistency.
In my time I have seen both birth and death,
Poverty and wealth,
Honesty and dishonesty,
Good and bad philosophy,
The pure heart of charity,
The face of greed,
And the divine seed.
I’ve heard blatant blasphemy,
Avowed spirituality.
I’ve been lost,
Forsaken
Alone.
I’ve needed saving grace to atone.
I’ve seen evil selfishness,
Blatant pettiness,
Purest love.
I’ve felt great joy from above,
Unexcelled happiness,
Deep despair and sadness
I have looked into the face of the grim reaper,
Borne witness to the circle of life keeper.
Like our forefathers, may our children learn,
To walk softly, but carry a big stick.
I offer the wisdom this lesson will return
To know when to walk with softness,
Or the big stick to pick...
To give to despots a swift kick.
For all things there is a time and season.
Living and loving in peaceful harmony with reason
For I have flown with the hawk,
Considered with the dove,
Pondered at length the Master’s love.
I've pondered that Divine legacy
Of great moral integrity,
Bequeathing a fundamental honesty,
Handing down fulfilling spirituality,
Simple bravery.
This soldier's legacy is always to yourself be true.
For valued dependability must life imbue,
Instilling grand courage,
That of the world's wrong's take umbrage,
Showing patient, loving kindness,
Shored with timbers of complete trustworthiness.
I want my children in this life to be,
Fitting reflections Dear God of thee,
Goodly lives honoring,
In harmony living with loving,
Knowing right from wrong,
With joy singing,
A heavenly
Song...
In all you do exude love,
For family, friends, neighbors,
God!
Yourself...
Adhere to that Iron rod,
With love greater than wealth.
For a person can’t fully others love,
Until Themselves...
They first truly learn to love.
There will come a time
In this world’s rotating rhyme,
When valiant peace cannot intercede,
Cannot undo Great greed's unholy need,
The blooming Armageddon seed
Planted by wicked winds of war indeed.
The past cannot so soon be undone,
For a plethora of heritage’s exist under the sun.
Brave men and true must take a stand,
Draw a finite line in the sand,
Justice for all to demand.
Over that line the oppressing foe
Must never ever go...
For those leading humanity down an ignoble path
Must suffer a good right hand's righteous wrath,
A cursory epitaph of blackened death.
Then, and only then,
Is it time to pick the warrior’s stick!
There will always be madmen in this world,
Malefactors with hating around them unfurled.
My child, the light of innocence around you pearled,
Brave men must rise these evils to stop.
Honorable men must freedom's gauntlet drop,
Perverted ambitions to disrupt,
Immoral machinations to corrupt.
Some men bent on violent destruction
Will not hear your peaceful solution.
These prevaricators hold the truth not in them
For they would spread an ignominious seed,
Of unholy greed that makes good men bleed.
Ominous beasts would the world enchain,
Receive convoluted joy in others pain,
Saddle just with malcontent,
Trample truths held self evident,
Oppress nations without due consent.
Sprouting mutiny’s around the world will always blossom
Kidnaping the light of life to ransom,
Bolting into full scale revolt
That can be quelled only with a mighty thunderbolt.
Honor cannot suffer tyranny
So good men must strike while the iron is hot,
Or lose all good peace has wrought
By blood of patriots on battlefields bought.
With all your might
Stand always ready to fight the good fight.
Stand up for the right.
Answer the call
Patriotism to defend the right install
On which depend societies all.
Sacred freedoms with your life defend
To that life’s very end.
My child, there will always be pathways to choose,
And for every choice there are dues
You must pay.
There's the easy way,
The hard way,
The fun way,
The right way,
the wrong way,
Your way,
your friend’s way,
The ever popular low way,
My way or the highway.
Sometimes mid life's mortality
It takes the greatest bravery
To turn the other cheek,
To walk in the footsteps of the Master meek,
With forbearing meek and mild
Bearing simple innocence of a child.
Good men must peaceful seeds sow,
Winnowed in winds that fiercely blow,
To with pure hearts quell the greater foe,
Replacing angered hearts...so peace can grow.
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A COMBAT SOLDIER'S PRAYER
by Gary Jacobson © 1999
http://namtour.com/prayer.html
This combat soldier's prayer,
Who has served his time in Hell,
Is may we learn the lessons of war well,
That we not doom future generations,
The same old tales of horror to tell,
To endure what in youth they see mistakenly as glory.
Oh God, do not let our children
Repeat the same old story.
Make it so that America's babies live to grow old
In this land of the free and the bold.
Help us throw off the shackles of hate that bind
And grow old in a life of a peaceful kind.
Teach us that there is no glory in war,
Nor honor there that brave men should not abhor.
Teach us instead, one for another our brothers to love.
Shower us with thine Celestial message from above,
That we plant seeds of peace evermore
And make war-no-more!
But if I should die on some far, far away battlefield
Know I answered the call
For a grand principle of freedom to yield.
My fervent prayer is that death
May not have been in vain
Fighting for peace and right for the world to attain.
My brothers, American roses standing by my side
On alien soil dying
In the summer of my youthful pride
All the leaves around me falling,
Now I’m lying here still, in sunshine and in shadow,
Longing to hear, “brother next door, I love you so."
For moldering in the soft ground below,
I feel you living and loving in the world above me
Standing tall because I fought that you might be...
Oh look ye down now,
And tell me you still think of me
Honor my red blood, spilt that others might stand free.
Tell me that I did not give my all for you in vain
That brothers and sisters do not look upon my sacrifice
With hateful,
Or even worse,
Uncaring disdain.
Do not forget me when my valley’s hushed
And white with snow,
Grass growing green in the summer of my meadow
Help me see the peace I lived and died for grow.
Make my lonely grave richer,
Sweeter be...
Make this truly,
"The land of the free
And the home of the brave,"
I gave my life to save
That I might too, lie eternally,
Forever free...
************
Other Memorial Day poems:
"The Veteran," http://namtour.com/vet.html
"I FELT I'D DIED," http://namtour.com/died.html
"A Combat Soldier's Prayer," http://namtour.com/prayer.htm featured by the American Legion.
A special poem, a prayer, for those now in harm's way in Iraq:
"Prayer for the Warriors," http://namtour.com/theprayer.html
"Portraits of Heroes," by the artist Kasiah, http://namtour.com/heroes.html
"It Don’t Mean Nuthin’," http://namtour.com/nuthin.html
"My Thousand Yard Stare," http://namtour.com/stare.html
"PTSD," http://namtour.com/ptsd.html
"Welcome Home," http://namtour.com/welcomehome.html
"War’s so different, yet somehow still the same," http://namtour.com/different wars.html
"i’m no hero," http://namtour.com/hero.html
"Soldiers Of The Wall," http://namtour.com/wall.html
For our POW/MIA's "The Yellow Rose," http://namtour.com/yellowrose.html
"Feel their spirits lingering in the wind," http://namtour.com/spirits.html
"Agent orange," and "Feral Stalking Night," http://namtour.com/AgentOrange.html
"Wife of the Man, From Vietnam," http://namtour.com/wife.html The message here applies equally to wives of men from Iraq.
"A Mother Lost Her Son To War," http://namtour.com/MomLost.html
"There’s A Bad Moon Rising," http://namtour.com/badmoon.html
the Americal at: "LZ Snoopy And The Red Baron," http://namtour.com/snoopy.html
"Airborne, Hill 875," http://namtour.com/Airborne.html
"The Sound Of Guns," http://namtour.com/guns.html
"Song Of Napalm," http://namtour.com/napalm.html
"Just Before The Battle Mother," http://namtour.com/battlemother.html
"Just Marchin’ Through The Nam," http://namtour.com/march.html
"A Shau Ripcord," http://namtour.com/ripcord.html
"Rockets Of Tet," http://namtour.com/tet.html
"Airborne, Hill 875," http://namtour.com/Airborne.html
"Dawn Patrol," http://namtour.com/patrol.html
"Once We Were Young," http://namtour.com/once.html
"How Can I Keep From Singing," http://namtour.com/singing.html
"War’s Carousel," and "War And Peace," http://namtour.com/carousel.html
"We Were Soldiers," and "Eye of the Tiger," and "Combat," http://namtour.com/WeWereSoldiers.html
"One Day at a Time," and "The Hill," and "The Homeless Vet," http://namtour.com/day.html
Proud Daughter of Walter (Monday) Poniedzialek
540th Engineer Combat Regiment, 2833rd Bn, H&S Co, 4th Platoon
There's "No Bridge Too Far"