Beyond This Wall


Close your eyes, put down your gun,
Rest yourself, try to catch your breath

Beyond this wall
Below that hill, behind that house
Lies a dusty death
You learn real fast if you're halfway smart
To keep your head down, bide your time.
I've seen too many eager kids like you
Catch a bullet, we send them down the line.

That one there, he's just a kid
Maybe 14, but don't you be fooled
His father's fathers for 200 years learned to fight in a harsher school
They whipped the British and the Russians too, from the Khyber Pass to Khye-Kheen hills
My guess is a 100 years from now, they'll be whipping someone still.

We picked one up, looked a lot like him, on a night patrol in Khandahar
I tried to grab his shoulder
But he slipped away and turned to run, but not that far
There was shouting, firing, the night split open in the flash of the I.E.D
One swift moment, it was over
I looked around, we'd lost three.

Just look around you, no rich kids here
Mostly middle class and working poor
Sons and daughters sweating out another dirty little war
Dust and sweat, the end of hope, crippling fear, sudden pain
Dreams and faith flushed like blood, flushed like blood down a filthy drain.

My son turned one two days ago
I haven't held him yet
My wife emails me pictures, holds him to the phone
You take what you can get.
Christmas and birthdays come and go, from day to dusty day
We listen to each other breathing on the phone and lie that everything's ok.

Well, I miss my family, I miss my wife
I miss the kid I've never known
If  by some small chance I'm spared my life
I swear I'll never leave my home.

Why we're here
What's the bigger picture
Why we're fighting, well it's not for me to say
I'll keep my head down
And with God's grace
I'll fight to live, fight to live
Another day.

Garnet Rogers