Valor

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Do not discount great deeds for their roots alone, my friend

So many tales I’ve told, I’ve now grown old of those who walk out before their end.

And in their privileged eyes they see, through scales once claimed by Saul,

The enemy of diplomacy and the greed which makes men butchers all.

While I concede the bloody creed to which I’ve resigned my soul, 

Is best kept to those neglect the authors of their missions’ goal.

This does not mean their well-earned gleam should be stamped as pagan grin,

Nor as the savage mood of a barbarous brood whose lives are marked by sin. 

I marched across the Alps with a Corsican, a Carthaginian once before,

I traversed the whole of Persia with Alexander in his great lust for war.

I manned the battlements of Krak de Chevalier as the enemy lay all about, 

Once more at Byzantium, I fought in vain to keep the Turkmen out.

Equally, my spear ran thru British earls in Shakka’s ensnaring horns,

Likewise, I watched my brothers fall to Pyrrhus in a victory he still yet mourns. 

All this to say the outcomes of my spent blood and dogged toil,

Did not merely mean to me the transfer of some ephemeral goods or now-burnt soil. 

We each are born alone in ways, 

the situation about us too well-rooted for one to singlehandedly up end, 

but it was not the cause of a past-peak rhetorician for my soldiering I did spend.

I am a cog in the machine but a pawn without agency I did not play, 

I am to blame for my misgivings, but I did not die that day.

And for that reason, I shout “High treason!” to the man who will not say,

Bless those souls, by which we repose, who believed in valor in some way. 

Do not misconstrued my argument rude to those who cannot see the succor for this pain,

I too find no reasonable mind who could rectify the dead about them lain. 

I was once young and it stole my youth before I could use it as intended,

The happy heart I once enjoyed was forever-after fractionally pretended. 

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Suffering that swings out the door which held you above that sacred floor, 

Wreaks havoc on the mind within, 

Suddenly, you don’t know what affects you now, nor who were back then, 

Just as with addicts who have recovered from chemically induced bondage, we should respect all who’ve made it to the other side,

God only knows the rows pon rows of veterans who stand here today alive, and as with ex-addicts we should hold them in each day with pride.

The transgressions of the individual are not washed away in service, 

But the complacency of the noncombative does not absolve them while they’ve given less.

If throughout military history it was all to be one great supreme conspiracy which in its blatant falsity did insult everyday morality, 

Then I ask those dissenters of this practice in its longevity, if we do not honor sacrifice, what do we reward the selfless?

The Charge of the Light Brigade thunders in the distance as Great War schoolboys are sent once more into Sauron’s hellscape.

Are you to deny them glory for their sacrifice’s futility in effect?

Is it only in the results by which we praise or we neglect?

Imagine you stand before the chopping block my friend, as your comrades look on upon your death. 

If there be no reward for martyrs, then why do we dream unchecked?

We have found horrible ways to maim each other, elegantly masked brutality we possess,

We have backstabbed lover equally as brother, that another we love more dearly may more peacefully rest.

Do not assume those who died in struggles fought for their sole gain alone,

If not always, then at least most often, we fought for those back home. 

I am monstrous to she for whom I’d gladly fight the lot, 

But it is only with my defense that she is safe enough to love me not. 

When I am gone, and I return to those whom I watched fall on many fields,

Perhaps my only worth will only be the temporary defeat of some threat that never yields.

My love.

Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die.

Although my time to return is nigh, 

I died with brothers at my side, 

Now I am once more allowed to ride,

And believe in she who sits with me astride, 

And my bones don’t ache, 

And the earth don’t quake, 

As the falling shells light up the burning sky.

But here they never reach the ground, 

And guns no longer make a sound, 

It’s just the horse’s lungs and my heart that pound,

Because valor is my only reprieve. 

So I hope that helps you as you grieve, 

Do not stand at my grave and cry, 

Although not fair, you now know why.