“Older men declare war. But it is the youth that must fight and die”

~Herbert Hoover

The army’s marching in a line

The glistening of the bayonets shiny and fine

My squad sitting under an oak tree, peelling a clementine rind

I think about humankind

How we can kill in a place so divine

I can see the smoke rising from the sky

Thinking about how I will probably die

After so many bullets fly

How many men never got to chance to say goodbye 

And when everything settles and the blood dries

We will still be sitting there thinking “why”

I think “why am I fighting people I don’t hate”

But generals far away have already chosen my fate

And when I try to run it will be too late

But we are just pawns no more than bait

But it will never end because it’s a human trait

That we feel the need to desecrate 

People who we want to dictate 

As I shoot to kill the gun projects a popping sound

That’s when I see a man hit the ground

I saw the pain it his face it was resound

But I figured out something so profound 

That he was human too, and it's so renowned

But this is something I only found, 

Only after I shot a round that lay him to the ground

 I thought about how his family would have cried 

And that’s when I lost my pride

Not a minute later a bullet hit me in my side

And I was thinking about that man when I died