KIA! ONLY NUMBERS?

Two hundred, twenty-eight years

That, we have been going to war
Eleven times we said, “For freedom!”
Was, what we were fighting for.
We’ve spent two, point, six trillion
But that was just a petty cost
Compared to all of the spent lives
Of those loved ones, who were lost.
Thirty-two hundred plus, a month
For more than thirty-two years
The total time fighting our enemies
And more time, shedding our tears.
One and one quarter million dead
That’s more than fifteen every day
Since we went to war, “For freedom!”
In our Revolutionary way.
One and one half million wounded
For this Country of the Free
Although some of these losses
Were the Union’s and Confederacy.
But, all of them are Veterans
Who fought for what they believed
In their own way, doing battle
For those Freedoms, they perceived.
As of late, a Veteran’s definition
Has come from a different kind of War
For which we all, are conscripted
To help guard, our Freedom’s door.
Let’s Honor, each and every one
And though we may not know each name
They were so much more than numbers
In every Wartime’s deadly “game”.
And, each November eleventh
In the years, that come to be
Let’s hope someday, all People
Live in a land, where they are Free.
Let’s make Veteran’s Day a memory
And a part of days gone past
Learn to live with our Fellowman
In a Free World at Peace, at last.

Del “Abe” Jones

10-24-2003