Those things you saw
Corrupted you from the start
No longer part of what you did
But were complicit in
Witness to torture
Murder and worse
It was simply news on TV
But it infected you like a virus
Taught you killing was righteous
Under the right circumstances
'Right' meaning just and true
According to the red white and blue
Questioning neither medium nor message
You signed up for Iraq
Tour of duty spreading democracy
Like it was a roadside bomb
Exploding for the common good
So you hobble home legless
One eye out, balls blown off
Asking who is killing who
And for what? Another Vietnam?
No reply only subterfuge
The discomfort of the soldiers' lot
Years in rehab and no answers
Expected to enter into normal life
After that amplified strife
In your sweating sleepless nights
Reliving bone-chilling fire fights
Until the dim weary dawn
Finds you demanding to know what maimed you
Demanding to know why your death was ordered
Demanding again to know what it was
Your brothers didn’t come home for.
© shaun patrick green 2011
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