Twenty-Two Vets

     The Boston Red Sox and New Balance Footwear inc. along with a large variety of  other sponsors (too numerous to mention here) are again hosting the “Run to Home Base” road race challenge on July 25, 2015  for the 5th consecutive year. The “Run to Home Base” helps to raise funds to counsel and support those veterans for whom their military service was so overwhelming, that they are having trouble coping with everyday life in the very society that they so bravely defended. Please understand that there is another level beyond the physical wounds of war.

      Please help support these heroes in any way  possible.

    Thanks,

Jake.

TWENTY-TWO VETS

Twenty-two vets

will die today

but not in a war fought

far away.

No, they’ll not perish

amid battle’s din,

for them the enemy

lies within.

Every sixty minutes

plus another five

another hero

does not survive.

And that fact alone

should give us pause,

because for most,

we know the cause.

They are in of need help

so desperately

yet too quickly

they’re set free.

Oh, they’ll try to adapt

and live like us all

but the scars of war

live in their recall.

And those demons will drive them

to the last,

until all their thoughts

are of the past.

When until those thoughts

become a living dream

and they can bear no more

their demon’s scream.

Twenty-two two vets

will die today

by their own hand

and not far away.

Yes, twenty-two heroes

will be laid to rest.

Let us pray each tomorrow,

there will be one less.

***

Jack Downing

Nov. 11, 2014

Copyright© Jack Downing, aka Jake @poemsandponderings.wordpress.com. All rights reserved. Contents may not be reprinted or disseminated in any manner without the expressed, written consent of the author. JRD. 7/18/15

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