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Once More Into The Breach

Posted by :Troop On : December 30, 2015
0

Category: FB Posts, Poetry

(a fireman’s/policeman’s heart)

Once more into the breach I go,
unto what fate, I do not know.
But duty calls and friends may fall,
so once more into the breach I go.

From friends and loved ones I depart,
though it pains me to leave them now.
But life is in peril and time is short
and I must defend it somehow.
Someone may lose a parent or child
if when called, I then fail to show.
So I kiss my children nighty night
as once more into the breach I go.

The fear I feel is deep inside
for I have not the time for it now.
Though home and comfort call to me,
I ignore their urging somehow.
I swore an oath to defend all life
and to that oath I owe.I must conquer myself for I wish to live
as once more into the breach I go.

And should this be my last time out,
should I meet my eternal end,
Lord, look kindly down on me
and protect those I gave all to defend.
I’ve placed myself into your hands,
my fate, only you know.
Remember me, Lord. I answered your call.
As once more into the breach I did go.

Once more into the breach I go.
Unto a fate that only He knows.
But duty calls and friends might fall,
So once more into the breach I go.

In Praise of the Corpsman

Posted by :Troop On : September 21, 2015
0

Category: FB Posts, General Inspiration, Poetry

From the Halls of Montezuma
To the shores of Tripoli;
I fight my country’s battles
With a corpsman next to me;
When first to fight for right and freedom
It’s hard to keep my fresh wounds clean;
But a corpsman keeps me on the job
Of a United States Marine.

Our flag’s unfurled to every breeze
From dawn to setting sun;
If I’m shot at any time or place
There’s a corpsman on the run;
Frostbite on a far-off Northern shore
Or sunny tropical disease,
A corpsman keeps me coming home,
From foreign land or seven seas.

So here’s health to you and to my Corps
In which I proudly serve;
In many a strife you’ve saved my life
And never lost your nerve.
While I know one day we all must pass
And that all will meet an end.
But I’ll be fighting as long as I can
Because the corpsmen are my friends.

 

From the Marine Corps Hymn

Revision by Keith D. Troop

9/13/2015

It Never Fades

Posted by :Troop On : August 19, 2015
1

Category: FB Posts, Fiction, Poetry

They never fade, you know.

Those horrible pains from long ago.

They tell you with time they will disappear, but it simply isn’t so.

 

That’s what my dying friend said.

Lying still in his hospital bed.

I had made a promise to stay with him until from this world he had fled.

 

“Friend, do you know that I’m here?”

I said leaning closer to his ear.

He squeezed my hand and smiled a little as his eye produced a tear.

 

“I know that you’ve stayed by my side.

And I know of the pain that you think you hide.

I’m using the last of all I am so that in peace you can abide.”

 

From this knowledge I reeled.

I pretended my hurts were all healed.

I locked all my hurts in the deepest vault; they were supposed to be sealed.

 

I asked how it was to go on.

When you’ve carried deep hurts for so long.

If my hurts would not fade away, I did not know how to be strong.

 

“You have to give your hurts away.

A little piece of them all given every day.

You use them to comfort and heal others that you find hurting along the way.

 

“Those pains are not yours to keep.

Those wounds that got buried so deep.

Hoarding these pains that you’ve collected will leave a harvest of sorrow to reap.”

 

What value could be found in my pain?

What comfort in seeing how deeply I’m stained?

If my pain is so damaging in my own heart, how could it bring others gain?

 

“It’s not about making yourself well.

It’s not about escaping your personal hell.

With those pains, you may enter the prisons of life and open the darkest of cells.

“Your hurts are not your own.

They are there to use as touchstones.

Make them a sanctuary where lost ones can run, then lead those back to their home.

 

“That’s how the sorrow abates.

How you fill the holes that your pain creates.

When you’ve given in love all these things that were your sources for hate.

 

“That’s what I’m doing for you.

By lovingly teaching you how to be new.

I have set free the last of my pain so that it could bring healing to you.”

 

With that, he then shut his eyes.

No time for lengthy or awkward goodbyes.

I, having just learned how to live my life, as he ended his with a sigh.

A Part of the Pack

Posted by :Troop On : July 3, 2015
1

Category: General Inspiration, Poetry

My unworthy ode to the awesome poem, “The Hound of Heaven”

[gview file=”http://www.troopisstrangerthanfiction.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/A-Part-of-the-Pack.pdf”]

Fall Forward

Posted by :Troop On : July 3, 2015
0

Category: General Inspiration, Poetry

…and keep fighting.

[gview file=”http://www.troopisstrangerthanfiction.us/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Fall-Forward.pdf”]