Mary E-A. K. Remaniak Poetry

It started just a few years ago
When we decided to protect our country
And end a tyrant's reign.
The people welcomed our fresh troops time and time again.
Maybe the invasion wasn't the best thing
That we could have done.
Still, we did what we thought was right
And now people are telling us it was a mistake:
"Pull out now and end the fight. Too much blood's been shed with no gain."
What do they think will happen if we follow their advice?
Don't they realize that if we do what they want,
We’ll have squandered time and lives?

Keep up the fight!
- That’s what we were taught-
Until the war is over.
Do your best to fix this mess;
No one can ask for more than your life.
Do not stop the fighting now,
Or we will have spent our lives for an empty dream.
Cost what it may, I will finish this fight.
It is not what it seems,
For we're trying to help them start a new life
And realize freedom's dream for themselves.

I lie here at the battlefront
Not knowing whether I'll live or die.
It's a clear cold night that I spend here
Under the starry sky.
I think about the time I've spent
Fighting for my country's cause.
Now I'm wounded, but I wouldn't go back
If it meant my sacrifice was lost.
I'll be proud to stand in front of God on my own judgment day
And say I fought for freedom and life,
Fighting under the flag of the USA.

From Heaven, I look down on earth
And am saddened by what I see.
I was given a hero's honors when I arrived back home
And was buried beneath the green.
But some people take it totally wrong
And are grieved to see me dead and gone.
To them I died uselessly, for a useless cause in a wrong war.
These people just don't see it right.
They don't understand what we were fighting for.
To them it is an empty cause, a worthless war.
But to us who died, it's much more than that.
It was a noble way to spend our time making a difference
And to give our lives away.

Keep up the fight!
Don't let us down.
Don't throw away our lives.
If you pull out after all this time,
What's become of our sacrifice?
Do not stop till the job's well done;
Finish what you've begun.
Let us not give up this fight
Because some people do not with it agree.
Keep in mind our sacrifice!
That's this soldier's plea!

Poet: Mary E-A. K. Remaniak