chrissteele

A Veterans Day Poem, written January 4, 2006
This poem may lose me some friends but as one young woman on myspace says: I'd rather be hated for what I am, than loved for what I'm not. Since the poem was written, I've had second thoughts on whether we should just pull out of Iraq - but the basic sentiment remains the same - and timeless...

Thank You

I watched the Tournament of Roses College Game tonight
I saw 50 or thereabouts young nervous hyped up men
Fighting for Glory and the chance to become millionaires many times over
What they did was amazing and rare and hard to do
And some of them,especially one, came away with a whiole shovelful of glory and a chance for a whole bathtub full of 1,000 dollar bills when they go to the NFL

They are beloved, they are admired:
But I also saw and heard, televised from halfway around the world in Iraq
A group of young servicemen and women who were watching the Big Game and who were coincidentally rooting for and from Texas
These young men and women have a lot more on the line than failure, success, glory, riches - or becoming the unwilling goat in a game that so much importance and significance is placed on by an in front of hundreds of millions of men, women, boys and girls, especially in America

These young service men and women have their very lives, their very bodies and minds, physical and emotional well-being
For the REST of their lives on the line

I mean who ARE the heroes,
Who are the idealists
And let their be no mistake:
These young men and women are idealists
A t.v. journalist just recently became a Marine Corps officer because he believed so much in what these young men and women are fighting for - and against
I just a while back saw a report on the bodily sacrifices these men and women make
(And announcers and pundits constantly hype the virtue of sacrificing your body to win a football game)
In that report, they spoke of a young man who had been both totally paralyzed AND blinded, fighting a war that many, including me, are not sure we should have started

But now that we have started it,
We have to finish it
We have to win it
Defeat is not an option
Victory is the ONLY option
Because the consequences of defeat are too awful to contemplate

The consequences of losing tonight's football game for those fortunate few young men, or winning it,
Are the differences of making a few million dollars in the near future
And making 100's of millions
The difference between telling the story to their children and grand children of how they won the Big Game or
How they lost it and almost won it and should have won it

There is a Bigger, more deadly game being played all over the world 24 hrs. a day
It has been played since the beginning of time -
A constant war between Good and Evil -
There is Evil in the world, unfortunately
Our Liberties, our very Lives - all of us - all over the world are at stake

These football players are not heroes
They are not the real ideaists
Our young service men and women do more and risk more every minute of every day

They are the real
Heroes

They deserve our Love
They deserve Glory
They deserve our Thanks
From the Beating Blood of our Hearts

Thank You
Thank You
We ALL Thank You