….
Once, we were soldiers,
Boys of eighteen;
Intrepid and stupid,
One just sixteen.

Some were rock stolid,
Caught-up in fraught;
In rightness of action,
Righteous, we thought.

We were the children
Of the Great War
Our fathers had fought in,
So there’d be no more.

Dearer to children,
O Lord! Give us pause –
Why else send all children,
To a lost cause?

Dearer to children,
Yet sacred our cause –
Why else send our children
Into the jaws

Of Baal, the great Idol,
Ideal of the law;
Extending now Extant,
Into what Once Was?

Once, were they soldiers;
Once, are they means;
Once, they be young lads,
Just barely in teens.

What causes for just wars?
Will they never end?
Not so for the children,
Whom we still will send –

Our dearest of children,
At so sacred cost;
Why else send the children
Just to be lost?

Wherein lie lies,
In lies that we must?
Therein belies
The lives we make Just.
~

©2015, Marvin Welborn
9 July 2015; Revised 23 May 2016.