"WE STILL SERVE"

You left your home, so young and brave
A proud Marine, not a bit afraid.
To a war you went so far away.
Your country called, you had to obey.
Now in a land where death does abide,
You fight and strive to stay alive.
Though in the Jungle so thick it hides the sky,
To mud of the paddies where you dry.
No longer the boy so full of dreams.
The naive kid with a thousand schemes.
For you have aged beyond your years.
And know the pain of a thousand tears.
In thirteen months of death and hell.
You live a story you dare not tell.
A story of how you aged a hundred years.
On your way home you have time to reflect
On t6he friends that have died and the ones that you left.
A tear comes to your eye, which you can't control,
A tear that comes from your very soul.You seem withdrawn from friends you've known,
A man alone in a place called home.
Your youth you left so far behind,
In a place that will leave forever in your mind.
For the nights of terror have just begun,
The screams of the dying and you are one.
That war in a land so far away,
Now lives with you from day to day.

By: Thomas Farrell