"I Am an American Soldier" & other war poetry

[Steve Plonk]

Soldier's Creed
Submitted by: scrappingfor2boys
Author: unknown
I am an American Soldier.
I am a Warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the United States and live the Army values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never accept defeat.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself.
I am an expert and I am a professional.
I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat.
I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life.
I am an American Soldier.

Since we are a month out from the end of the Iraq War, I thought I'd
post this one. I have a nephew who served there & elsewhere.
This is a serious poem, & is part of the culture of those in the military...
I always will support our troops put in harm's way...

[Kailashana]

Far cry from the beating the Nam vets received then and now (many living on streets).

However, I think America holds no ideals. The *Democratic* process has been blown up, and America is bleeding from every orifice. Ugly America although there are good people and the world knows Americans are not their politicians nor their soldiers of war. War, whoever serves whichever country is an ugly business. No one *wins*, not really, for what has been won today, will rear it's head again and again until human beings decide to be "all that we can be".

~A

p.s. thanks for sharing

[Steve Plonk]

Here's a rerun for this poem, for the troops, on Memorial Day week.

[Steve Plonk]

"How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!" -Maya Angelou

[Steve Plonk]

Wilfred Owen (1893-1918)
"Anthem for a Doomed Youth"

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
--Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

[Steve Plonk]

Here's a poem by Joyce Kilmer, who also wrote the poem: "Trees" who
died a hero's death in World War One...

Prayer of a Soldier in France (1918)
By Joyce Kilmer

My shoulders ache beneath my pack
(Lie easier, Cross, upon His back).
I march with feet that burn and smart
(Tread, Holy Feet, upon my heart).

Men shout at me who may not speak
(They scourged Thy back and smote Thy cheek).

I may not lift a hand to clear
My eyes of salty drops that sear.

(Then shall my fickle soul forget
Thy Agony of Bloody Sweat?)

My rifle hand is stiff and numb
(From Thy pierced palm red rivers come).

Lord, Thou didst suffer more for me
Than all the hosts of land and sea.

So let me render back again
This millionth of Thy gift. Amen.

[Christopher T. George]

Are soldiers free-thinking beings defending democracy or are they cattle led to slaughter, the continuation of a cycle of killing that will continue as long as soldiers are willing to serve? These questions can be examined from both directions as shown by the above posts. Here's "Universal Soldier" written by Canadian singer-songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie and as performed by Donovan:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UC9pc4U4 ... re=related

Universal Soldier
(Buffy Sainte-Marie)

He is five foot two,
and he's six feet four,
he fights with missiles and with spears,
he is all of thirty-one,
and he's only a seventeen,
he's been a soldier for a thousand years.

He's a Catholic, a Hindu,
an atheist, a Jain,
A Buddhist, a Baptist and a Jew,
and he knows, he shouldn't kill,
and he knows, he always will,
care for me, my friend, and I will care for you.

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA
and he's fighting for the Russains,
he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we put an end to war this way.

And he's fighting for democracy,
he's fighting for the Reds,
he says it's for the peace of all,
he's the one who must decide,
who's to live and who's to die,
and he never sees the writing on the wall.

And without him, how would Hitler
kill the people at Dachau,
without him Caesar would have stood alone,
he's the one, who gives his body
as a weapon of the war,
and without him always killing can't go on.

He's the universal soldier,
and he really is to blame,
his orders came from far away, no more,
they came from here and there,
and you and me ain't brothers,
can't you see,
this is not the way we put an end to war.

[Steve Plonk]

Thanks, Christopher, if you'd look in our Youtube Videos Forum, and scroll down a bit, you'll find Buffy Sainte-Marie's version, which she wrote. I'll refresh it for you in that Forum. Really one of my favorites, Thanks!

The answer is that soldiers, sailors, & airmen/women are all of the above...

[Christopher T. George]

Thank you, Steve. I'll listen to the Buffy Sainte-Marie version of the song.

Chris

[Christopher T. George]

Thomas Hardy wrote these two poems about soldiers in war. Both poems make simple but powerful statements.

The Man He Killed

"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him and he at me,
And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because –
Because he was my foe,
Just so – my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list perhaps,
Off-hand like – just as I –
Was out of work – had sold his traps –
No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."

************

Drummer Hodge

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
Uncoffined – just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew –
Fresh from his Wessex home –
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
Strange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plain
Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellations reign
His stars eternally.

[Steve Plonk]

Christopher, Thanks for these...If we keep posting we'll have a little compilation
that may picque others interest in poems by servicemen during wartime...

[Steve Plonk]

Here's an example of a poem from World War 2
From "20th Century Poetry and War"; "Part 3, "The Second World War":

"A Front"

by Randall Jarrell

Fog over the base: the beams ranging
From the five towers pull home from the night
The crews cold in fur, the bombers banging
Like lost trucks down the levels of the ice.
A glow drifts in like mist (how many tons of it?),
Bounces to a roll, turns suddenly to steel
And tyres and turrets, huge in the trembling light.
The next is high, and pulls up with a wail,
Comes round again - no use. And no use for the rest
In drifting circles out along the range;
Holding no longer, changed to a kinder course,
The flights drone southward through the steady rain.
The base is closed...But one voice keeps on calling,
The lowering pattern of the engines grows;
The roar gropes downward in its shaky orbit
For the lives the season quenches. Here below
They beg, order, are not heard; and hear the darker
Voice rising: Can't you hear me? Over. Over -
All the air quivers, and the east sky glows.

[short timer]

[mnaz]

"heart of darkness (again)"
by me.

they fought war to end all war
roman numeral etched in stone
there's a graveyard in hiroshima
gravestones flattened in a giant circle
monstrous weapons of final war
the point was to end it all

they made grainy, stock film on tv
gunships, black clouds, boom dubbed-in
triumph of justice, the impossible legend
no, they unleashed subhuman jungles
honor hinged on unhinged questions
duty performed, no stomach for it
sold upriver by phantoms and dues
heart of darkness, art of disease

put a voice to the legend
met a man in mojave, a desert bar
said he touched hell on the isle of saipan
the splattered temples and human smoke
he saw their eyes, the desperate demons
he spoke softly under the din, you leaned in
must be a limit to souls ripped violently
they come back to watch, and seep in

[mnaz]

oppenheimer's successor at los alamos (norris bradbury?):

"people thought about the implications for mankind, but not me. we were at war, and the damn thing worked" ....