The First Soldier

I’m driving through a desert

Everything’s quiet and calm

Then there’s a crash and a blast

And I can’t feel either of my arms

The roar of the fire is deafening

I’m slowly falling to sleep

When I start to wake

It’s because I hear a woman weep

My mother and girlfriend hold each other

A baby bump getting in the way

I speak, to let them know I’m alright

And that I’m home to stay

My poor girlfriend sobs louder

And my mother pats my leg

‘you’ve lost both arms at the elbow, dear

There’s ten pieces of shrapnel in your head’

I’m told we hit a roadside bomb

The bonnet was blown clean off

My friends and colleagues were all found dead

I felt like we’d lost

My girlfriend will never have me now

And how can I raise my daughter?

When we were sent into battle

We never knew it was lambs to the slaughter

My girlfriend asks me to marry her

An attempt, I think, to lift my mood

How am I going to provide for my family

And on the table, put food?

There’s barely any money to have

After being discharged medically

And I cannot find work anywhere

Because of my new disability

And when my girlfriend walks down the aisle

How will I take her hand?

Where’s that fairy godmother now

With her magic wand?

Quietly I say ‘no’ to my girl

Still on her knees patiently

She’ll do marvellous on her own

I’ve seen it in my reverie

She sobs and weeps, but understands

Realisation’s sinking in

She hopes her love can change my mind

And rearrange my thinking

My whole life turns into a blur

I think its meds’ side effects

At some point I think I got a medal

But honestly, what good is that?

I’m too useless to kill myself

Without my arms I’m nothing

I need help to put food in my mouth

I must be good at something!

And what will YOU do Prime Minister

To prevent more boys getting like me

Bring them back from battle, Sir

Like me, most are seventeen

They are our country’s children

And our country they want to protect

Can’t you see, they are our future

So stop fighting some pointless sect.