[Blindvet-talk] Here is a Christmas Poem for the Presidential Release!

Tue Nov 25 23:38:54 UTC 2008

Please read on below my signature!

Dwight D.  Sayer
President,
The National Association of Blind Veterans
A Division  of the NFB
Email - presidentnabv at aol.com
or _president at nabv.org_ (mailto:president at nabv.org)   

____________________________________

A Soldiers Christmas Poem!

The embers glowed softly, and in their dim  light,
I gazed round the room and I cherished the sight. 
My  wife was asleep, her head on my chest,
My daughter beside me, angelic  in rest.
Outside the snow fell, a blanket of  white,
Transforming the yard to a winter delight. 
The  sparkling lights in the tree I believe,
Completed the magic that was  Christmas Eve. 
My eyelids were heavy, my breathing was  deep,
Secure and surrounded by love I would sleep.
In  perfect contentment, or so it would seem,
So I slumbered, perhaps I  started to dream. 
The sound wasn't loud, and it wasn't too  near,
But I opened my eyes when it tickled my ear. 
Perhaps  just a cough, I didn't quite know, Then the
sure sound of footsteps  outside in the snow.
My soul gave a tremble, I struggled to  hear,
And I crept to the door just to see who was near.  
Standing out in the cold and the dark of the night,
A lone  figure stood, his face weary and tight. 
A soldier, I puzzled, some  twenty years old,
Perhaps a Marine, huddled here in the  cold.
Alone in the dark, he looked up and smiled,
Standing  watch over me, and my wife and my child. 
"What are you doing?" I  asked without fear,
"Come in this moment, it's freezing out here!  
Put down your pack, brush the snow from your sleeve,
You  should be at home on a cold Christmas Eve!"
For barely a moment I saw  his eyes shift,
Away from the cold and the snow blown in drifts..  
To the window that danced with a warm fire's light
Then he  sighed and he said "Its really all right, 
I'm out here by choice.  I'm here every night."
"It's my duty to stand at the front of the  line,
That separates you from the darkest of times. 
No one  had to ask or beg or implore me,
I'm proud to stand here like my  fathers before me. 
My Gramps died at ' Pearl on a day in  December,"
Then he sighed, "That's a Christmas 'Gram always  remembers."
My dad stood his watch in the jungles of ' Nam  ',
And now it is my turn and so, here I am. 
I've not seen  my own son in more than a while,
But my wife sends me pictures, he's  sure got her smile. 
Then he bent and he carefully pulled from his  bag,
The red, white, and blue... an American flag.
I can  live through the cold and the being alone,
Away from my family, my  house and my home. 
I can stand at my post through the rain and the  sleet,
I can sleep in a foxhole with little to eat. 
I can  carry the weight of killing another,
Or lay down my life with my  sister and brother..
Who stand at the front against any and  all,
To ensure for all time that this flag will not fall."  
"  So go back inside," he said, "harbor no  fright,
Your family is waiting and I'll be all right."
"But  isn't there something I can do, at the least,
"Give you money," I  asked, "or prepare you a feast?
It seems all too little for all that  you've done, 
For being away from your wife and your son."  
Then his eye welled a tear that held no regret,
"Just tell  us you love us, and never forget. 
To fight for our rights back at  home while we're gone,
To stand your own watch, no matter how  long.
For when we come home, either standing or dead,
To  know you remember we fought and we bled.
Is payment enough, and with  that we will trust, 
That we mattered to you as you mattered to  us."

 PLEASE, would you do me the kind  favor of sending this to as many 
people as you can? Christmas will  be coming soon and some credit is due to 
our
U.S service men and  women for our being able to celebrate these
festivities. Let's try in  this small way to pay a tiny bit of what we owe. 
Make people 
stop  and think of our heroes, living and dead, who sacrificed them selves 
for us.  

LCDR Jeff Giles, SC,  USN
30th Naval Construction Regiment
OIC, Logistics Cell  One
Al Taqqadum, Iraq 

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