Lowered flags

ok I know it's not more pics of Ayla, we'll keep them coming soon. Here is a poem I wrote after noticing a summer full of emails telling someone at my workplace to make sure the flag was lowered to honor a fallen Missourian soldier.

Too commonplace for too long

Our flag doesn’t stand tall
It sits at half-mast
Troubled with another casualty of war

Maybe it was an annoying IED
Or a pesky enemy sniper
For Ron, it wasn’t pesky, annoying or vexing
It was his beloved first-born daughter
Another casualty of war

A razed hospital, necessary
The enemy is sly
A rural village in flames, necessary
The enemy is evil
Shouldn’t it be necessary to ask why?
Are we routing out terror or terrorizing?
Please justify the next casualty of war.

From the nest of Colorado Springs
Comes a report, “The war has come home”
Anger, crime and violence
Our kids who were sent to put down that nonsense
Have lost all sense of what is right, or wrong
Being rewarded for killing only confuses
Either traumatized or desensitized
Wrought, wretched, wound
No flags are lowered for this casualty of war

Lastly, for those righteous who say,
Ah, but we are indeed at war,
And it won’t end until the Christ returns!
It is ok to think this through…
A statement of what is to come
It is not a permission slip
Not even an endorsement
Maybe it is a challenge to press into what is taught
Love for thy enemies and especially thy neighbors
The lowered flag is clear, we need to speak up and declare
No more casualties from this Afghan war.