Call to Duty

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Call to Duty

“War does not determine who is right,

only who is left.”--Bertrand Russell.

When your Country calls,

you kiss your loved ones farewell,

train hard to handle weapons efficiently,

deploy to a foreign land

& kill the fucking enemy--

as directed. 

Our grandfathers took part

                 in Operation Overlord,

                             just as many of us were being born

in 1944;                most of them departed from Portsmouth,

England, & took part in the largest amphibious invasion in history,

                             hitting the bloody beaches of

Juno, Gold, Omaha, Utah, & Sword.

Over a million of our grandfathers did not come home.

When your Country calls,

you kiss your loved ones farewell,

train hard to handle weapons efficiently,

deploy to a foreign land,

& kill the fucking enemy--

as directed.

In 1951 our uncles took part

                              in the Korean War (Conflict),

                                        part of the aftermath of WWII,

                                        when the Japanese no longer controlled

the country, & the Soviet Union occupied the north,

                              above the 38th parallel,

                                         where Communism thrived like a pandemic.

Many of our uncles came in amphibiously at Inchon,

and pushed back the North Korean Army 

                              to above the Yalu river,

                              with their backs to the Chinese border--

until hundreds of thousands of fresh Chinese troops,

outfitted by the Soviet Union,

                              flooded into Korea, pushing our uncles

into a stalemate that lasted several more years.

33,686 uncles did not come home. 

When your Country calls,

you kiss your loved ones farewell,

train hard to handle weapons efficiently,

deploy to a foreign land,

& kill the fucking enemy--

as directed.

Coincidently in 1950,

                    the turmoil in French Indochina,

required us to send in military advisors, 

                    & of course in 1964, without

JFK to prevent it, many of us were pulled out of college,

or our civilian jobs, & sent to the delta, jungles, & tiger pits

as the Viet Nam War raged on for 9 more years.

                    In 1968 we were caught off guard

by the Tet Offensive, & it became obvious,

even to the hawk knuckleheads,

                    that the war was beyond any dreams of victory, so

we pulled out with our tail between our legs in 1975.

58,300 of us did not come home. 

When your Country calls,

you kiss your loved ones farewell,

train hard to handle weapons efficiently,

deploy to foreign lands,

& kill the fucking enemy--

as directed.

In 2003 the Bush Administration,

                   through lies & deception,

pushed us into the Iraq War, 

                   as many of our sons became

part of the American-led Coalition Forces

                   who conducted a surprise military invasion of Iraq

without declaring War. We fought in that sand-flea infested shit hole

for 9 years--until Obama, fulfilling his campaign promise,

pulled us out.

                   4,487 of our sons did not come home.

Even earlier, in 2001, after 9/11,

                    many of our nephews were sent

to Afghanistan in pursuit of Bin Laden,

                   even though as we concentrated our forces

in Iraq, we had less soldiers there than NYC had policemen.

13 years later,

                  we are still there, and already

2,313 of our nephews did not come home.

Today, this minute,

            President Obama is considering sending

the cream of our fighting men,

            Delta Force, Seals, Army Rangers, & Green Berets,

BACK INTO that camel shit-smeared quagmire

in Iraq, to mediate between

            the Sunni & Shea factions,

& to advise them how to face down

the blood-thirsty Isis fighters;

how many of these boys & men

will never come home again?

                   

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets MTB

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