Six when I held a stick

Bang Bang your dead

 Bobby fell in the mud

Yanks & Japs we played till sunset

All lived an died and laughed and bled

Thirteen when I held a cadet  rifle

Bang Bang the cardboard target hit on the range

Young shoulders bruised by the recoil

Smell of cordite

Now registered in my brain

Sixteen when I fired a Howitzer

Massive bang huge recoil

Huge shells slammed in the breach

Screeching death towards the ranges

Churning up the soil

Nineteen when I fired a missile

Bang whoosh as it left the beams

Direct hit on an enemy jet

Huge fireball

Forever in my dreams

Six when my rifle was a stick

Where Bobby can rise of from the dead

The War won before bedtime

Dirty holes in my jeans

My rifle safely hidden underneath my shed.

©  Tony McNally