A SON ARRIVES HOME TO MOTHER

A day like any other
A son arrives home to mother
Folded flag on his lead-lined urn
Back from the Gulf, where the oilfields burn

A patriot lost to Red machinations
A hero lost in the great clash of nations
The chaplain’s words are generic and brief
It does not allay his mother’s deep grief

Amidst Democracy’s great panic
He signed up as a mechanic
And went to war in the gunnery room
Of an air cruiser bearing nuclear doom

High overhead, his air cruiser shook
While jetpack troopers assaulted Kirkuk
Dodging air to air rockets and Soviet flak
He kept the guns firing to support the attack
Boarded by the enemy over dusty Helmand
He wielded hammer and wrench in grim hand to hand
Fought them till they could stomach no more
Piling up their broke bodies at the gunnery room door

The captain learned of his valor and what he had done
Arranged for promotion, gave him control of a gun

So in the clear blue skies over gutted Tabriz
He swatted Red fighters as if they were fleas
But south of Tehran, the atomics started to fly
And caught in a shockwave did his air cruiser die

Months later, ground troops secured its skeletal wreck
And collected his ashes from the gunnery deck

Gone from the living, gone from the fight

He among thousands came home on one flight

So the Air Corps could return him back to his mother

To put on a shelf, next to his brother