Poor old Freddy is manic depressive but he has earnt all of his phobias and fears <br />At nineteen he was a young soldier and that's going back six decades of years <br />Who fought in the trenches of Europe where the most of his brave comrades fell <br />He doesn't have to fear the hereafter since he has been through earthly hell. <br /> <br />He left the army without counselling and to make a go out of life he did try <br />But he had been through many traumas and he had seen too many die <br />For solace he turned to alcohol and into depression did sink <br />And he's spent years in and out of asylums as one living on suicide's brink. <br /> <br />One of the few World War 2 survivors in the land of the living today <br />The nurse makes sure he takes his medication to keep his old war ghosts at bay <br />Life doubtless for him would be better had he never fought in a war <br />His time in the trenches in Europe left him with a deep mental scar. <br /> <br />It was not of much use to Freddy that the side he had fought on had won <br />The war changed the whole course of his life and strange things to his mind had done <br />His price for becoming a hero for him seemed far too high to pay <br />And had he never been to battle he'd feel saner and happier today. <br /> <br />Far too young to be shipped off to battle for to fight under a foreign sky <br />For to experience such must have been traumatic for a teenage fresh faced country boy <br />Who hailed from the high wooded country the home of the pied <br />currawong <br />That young men must fight for the war lords to say the least <br />morally wrong. <br /> <br />Poor Fred a forgotten old soldier the years have left him looking gray <br />He suffers from manic depression and he never has much to say <br />About the great battles he fought in where most of his young comrades fell <br />And he doesn't fear the hereafter for he has lived in earthly hell.<br /><br />Francis Duggan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-old-soldier/
