God Bless America

“I fought in Vietnam.

Watched my men lay down their guns.

Watched the life of my old buddy, Red, drain from his eyes.

I heard the cries of a widowed wife,

 as I told her, her husband died.

Many of us believed that the lord was on our side.

We prayed and wished for him,

to rescue us from the screams.

So many screams.

I lost my wife, my child, and my legs in that war. 

It never left me.

Ever.

I still cry at night, for all of those who lost their lives.

For a war not worth fightin’. 

War.

 It’s never worth fightin’ over.

No matter the country, the state, the religion, or the girl.

War is war.  Never worth fightin’.”

He told me this one day in mid-July. 

As he sat in his box, his home, behind a run-down laundromat. 

Eating beans out of a can.

America, the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Or is it?