The questions you ask young lady, young man <br />of our nation and my generation, is nothing unexpected. <br />Just like the blood our dead brothers and your forefathers shed; <br />they have and always will beg to be given answers. <br />And to those of us who have seen and survived War’s red fire. <br />Those answers are like the hallowed sounds of the silenced dead. <br />And to you, like only more empty words; written but not understood. <br />To be held in suspicion and with contempt by a dark blindness <br />of truth and light. Freedom means nothing to those <br />who have never had to fight for the love of a country. <br />Freedom is nothing more than some whored out allegiance <br />recited by the morally impaired and wounded as their flag <br />passes in parade or is raised to honor those memorialized by time. <br />In truth, Freedom is a phenomenon <br />known only to those who have sacrificed; who have lived with its scars <br />and nightmares of horror and deadly warfare. <br />While to those who have only benefited from this long and gifted <br />national treasure; to those neophyte’s untrained ears, <br /> the answers we gave as reasons are only anthems veterans proudly hail; <br />old fashioned patriotism and imperialist propaganda now stale. <br />When the point of fact is young lady, young man….. <br />we the tired, we the old….have lied to cover the truth; not of what we did <br />but rather that of what we had to do….and would do again if so asked. <br />Out of a deep and abiding love for what God and America have <br />given to us all… <br />“Freedom is not just another word” <br />It is the basis of all that is good <br />and the destruction of all that is evil. <br /> <br />2008 © T S<br /><br />Ted Sheridan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/fire-at-will-original-version/
