SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

You could have died in bed,
But you chose the field of battle.
Fascinated by the machine guns rattle,
And those flying slugs of lead.
The rifle in your hand gives you a sense of power,
Enemy shells bursting killing men by the hour.
Youthful sense of heroics led you astray,
The question is will you live through another day.
Grenades explode all around you,
Those that survive are few.
You do not seem to care a lot,
On the killing fields of battle many are left to rot.
Dug in, in your trench thick with squashy mud,
Waiting with baited breath, listening to the shells next thud.
Eighteen years old now filled with the knowledge of death,
What will be your thoughts as you take your last Breath?
Will you think of home and your Mum and Dad?
The rest of their lives empty and so very sad.
Some have lost a leg others an arm,
Were you so naive to believe there would be no harm?
Was it the thought of medals or to be mentioned in dispatch?
That made you join an army at a moment’s scratch.
You could have said no, that war is a crime.
Down through history men have done it all the time.
You fight on foreign shores not protecting your Fatherland.
Yours is an act of aggression, something not very grand.
A Soldier of fortune fighting for filthy money,
Is neither heroic or sadly not in the least funny.
A man paid to kill all that stands in the way.
Barbaric that is all one can find to say.
You made your choice it was your very own,
When you die no one is to blame but you, and you alone.
When and if you are buried with a tombstone at your head,
One can only say a brave fool is now very dead.