Hooray for our soldiers

With the glitter and the marching high school bands in gold and glory
     Down the streets of gleaming steel and glass towers
Our returning soldiers wearing dress uniforms
     Bedecked with the ribbons and badges of glory and valor



Sitting alone in a sterile cell
Measuring eight feet by ten feet
With the single window covered with duct tape
Ehren Watada is with clear conscience now

In the sunken, deep into the nation’s bowels
Civilian command and control situation room
Sits the command in chief-
No longer willing to be called President-
hearing his generals but he asks no questions at all



All for one and one for all
     Sitting in the darkened, dust gathering VFW halls
In the silence of their memories of what war really is about
     Drinking to forget and be forgiven in that conscienceless alcohol



Forty six soldiers have answered their conscience
In public call
Their duty is to place humanity and life
Above the last refuge of the scoundrel

While old men resume the human poker stakes
Of the Great Game
Old reprobates and retreads that walk
In the shadows of Pinochet and Nixon

“Can Do, Sir!” scream grim faced UDT, SEAL and Delta forces,
     jumping up and stamping their spit polished boots in unison in fierce readiness
while shadowy DO operatives extraordinarily rendition all who oppose
     Unleashed from the rule of law by an unfit commander-in-chief



Greater humility is to the soldier
who heeds no immoral order
who obeys the morality of not to murder
who knowingly gives up this most ancient act

What happens to this nation
When there is no conscience of the king
When