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I am a Soldier, a short story by JJ. Date added: 2010-05-16. Times viewed: 1212.

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Intro: An ex-squaddie I knew accused me of being anti-soldiers. Fair point I thought. He also challenged me to write a more sympathetic poem - this is it.

I Am A Soldier

I see you march for your cause

with hatred burning in your eyes

clouding your vision,

spitting on my doorstep

now I’m back from the wars.

What could you know of all I’ve seen,

the friends I’ve lost each day.

I’m still mourning,

I’m still having nightmares

but I’m expected just to adjust.

I was barely a kid when the conscripts came

telling me of ‘heroes’ and a ‘code of honour’.

Where did they go

when the explosions started

and we ran out of body bags?

I tripped over dismembered bodies,

shot at people I never even knew

so you can protest now

and turn your backs on me.

I did it all for you.

I got a medal once for nothing

except for being good at dodging bullets

while friends died

or bled around me.

I threw that piece of tin away.

Now the war is over, I’m still fighting it,

I still see the enemy in every doorway

only now he wears a badge

and a white poppy

and called ‘my fellow countryman’.

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