So you want to compare wars? I heard a politician say to a smirking commentator, whining.
No mention of right or wrong. Just, “I know we cannot win.”
I listened in stunned silence to all we have become.
A nation with a choice: Stand up and fight or run.
Not one word for victory or the warriors brave.
Women scream “Quit.” “Honor my shameful knave.”
The anchorman seems so genteel. Surely he would not lie.
Says he knows a solider who does not want to die.
But out in the dirt and sand lives another type of man.
Eyes of steel flash in disgust there when it all began.
“Who are you people to even contemplate the run?
“You know nothing of my life in the Valley of the Gun.”
The commentator and politician, even a former general or two.
“Stand down, solider boy. We know what is best for you.”
My mind goes back in time when I stood among the brave.
The soldier is the same. So is the smirking knave.
You speak often of my Vietnam. You wish to compare the wars.
Two things are the same: You gutless pols and whining bores.
Maj. Mark A. Smith, U.S. Army (ret.), served in Vietnam and Cambodia. He was a Prisoner of War.
