Have you ever …

Have you ever smelled the cordite

Hanging thick in the air,

Or seen a rockets’ fiery light

Streaking through the air

Have you ever felt the trembling ground

From bombs falling in the night,

Or felt the fear that grips you

When think you are about to die,

Have you ever wiped a friend’s blood

From your sweating brow,

Have you ever seen tracers streaking through the night

Seeking living flesh to deprive it of life,

Have you ever heard a dying man

Crying for his mother or wife,

Have you ever lived the nightmare of taking another’s life

And knowing that if possible they would not hesitate to strike,

Have you even ever stood on freedom’s wall to guard,

On dark and dreary night,

Have you ever seen an empty chair and known that person

Now occupies a casket; in them there is no life,

Or had a child’s arms wrapped tight around your leg

Say “please daddy don’t go, stay home tonight instead,”

Have you ever looked into to the eyes of your spouse,

Prematurely old from worry late at night,

Their once golden hair now white

Have you ever felt their trembling hand, fearful as they comfort you at night,

Because their rest was disturbed because you in your dreams were in a firefight,

For generations now men have fought and died to protect the right

To pray when they desired and to thank their God

For each and every day he gives of liberty and life

Only it seems to be taken by government regulation

On a fateful day when three thousand died living liberty

To those soldiers that died they spit upon those graves

They tell them they died in vain for those liberties,

You cannot pray at Ground Zero for some we may offend

Your sacrifices do not matter, we do not care in the end,

They did not smell the cordite, or hear the wounded scream,

Liberty of prayer sacrifice for our socialistic end.

Michael Blodgett

Wasilla