On War
A young woman stands with a flag-waving hand
supporting the war we fight in the sand
she knows this is right, it's the patriot's say
to side with the troops in an activist way.
The young lady stands with tears that keep falling,
observing her brother, who answered the calling,
he fell in the sand to an enemy mortar,
now they lay him to rest in Arlington's quarters.
We support freedom's ring, as we know it is right,
but it costs us the warrior's blood sacrifice.
It was written for my brother, who was standing next to a person that was killed in a mortar attack. People actually had the nerve to tell me I had something wrong with me just because I was terrified every single day that he was there and that sometimes it spilled into my work and other places in my life that I wanted to be free of hyper-paranoid-hysteria.
My brother went to Iraq in March, 2003. His unit was attacked with mortars so much that to relieve the tension they renamed one of their eateries on the base 'Mortaritaville.' It upset my brother because he's never had gallows humor. I have pictures of all this stuff, some of it online, but I have no idea how to transfer the photos.
I find it hard to believe all this happened and I lived it from the viewpoint of 'someone back home.' Sitting there in nail-biting tension hoping he would return.