If so, now it's just another 'sea story).
Happy Veterans' Day, shipmates!
Steve
The Young Veterans
When we forged Pappy’s ‘X’ on the quivering page,
And secretly scribbled ‘good-bye’,
In the wavery note that we hastily wrote,
Not a one of us thought we might die.
The rites we endured in the Passage to Man
Are mem’ries – the most of them good,
How little we knew! How quickly we grew!
As our Chiefs saw things go as they should.
With the movement of years so much change is in flux,
And the good and the bad pass away –
In a dead calm our spanker droops down as we anchor,
And dreams whisper ‘round at the quay,
We were quite old enough for ‘Anchors Away,’
But too young to drink to the foam,
And an item of note: we were too young to vote –
But might freely on battlefields roam.
So, Shipmate, take this for a lesson of worth,
After combat, the rules seem a pain:
It’s damned hard – no fun - to fight, but when done
Be treated as kids once again….
031608
© Steven C, Myers
Responses