Today I stand beside you to honor those we love.
The ones who made it home, the ones still fighting, and the ones called to guide us from above.
Today, when they sing the national anthem, don't be surprised if you see me cry. It represents everything that makes me proud to be semper fi.
Today, it doesn't matter where you come from.
If you're here, you're American at the core.
Today, we celebrate everything we're fighting for.
Today, we'll visit our parents, daughters and sons
And tell them their war is over
"You can finally rest in peace. It's okay. Lay down your guns."
Whether you're a soldier, seal or marine, thank you for shielding us from all the things you see that should never be seen.

So you wanna serve your country, huh?

Well to me, it seems like nobody’s fighting on the front.

Their all waiting for their grand opportunity.

Click. Click. Boom!

He went out with honors, y’all!

So you better believe it was all worth fighting for.

Now you’re telling me, you’re going into the Marines.

The few, the proud.

But doesn’t that mean I’m going to lose you, too?

Of course you’ll be working to make our country safer, but I’ll working behind the counter of a fast food restaurant.

You’ll be making life changing movements, but me, I’ll still be behind the books in the university.

So tell me, is it all the risk?

To lose you, and still come home a hero?

Because if you die, you’ll never play the basketball game you promised my kid brother.

You’ll never swish him in a pair of purple crocs.

You’ll never get to see me graduate.

But I will be serving my country, just not quite like you.

I’ll be saving lives, just not like you.

It’s pretty selfish of me, I admit.

But I don’t want to lose you, because I already lost myself.

You’re my first hello and my last goodbye.

Goodbye soldier, fight well for us all.

To all my co-seafarers out there
We're a kind of man that is rare
Sailing port to port is never easy
It makes our mind look messy

Grieve to achieve more and more
We sail to make our own lore
It's hard to have a safe sail you know,
Just to make my times flow and glow

For our family's on our homelands
Too far but cannot cut our bonds
Even if we are far from our loveones
A day with them will be our lance

As we sail through depths of sea
Only the future in your eyes, I see
Partly inloved without a body,
Of me waiting to be full heartedly

It's sad to say how people judge us
Disregarding it but it has a mass
We don't talk for us to believe
Is these words is what you give?

They say we're fool and full
Fool to trust our "I Love You"
And full of girls that we've made "I do"
But they know nothing but judgements

It feels good when you're way back home
Stealing kisses and hugs that comes
Years or months? Sad but there's also weeks
But its fine even a peke on your chicks

It's hard when we need to leave again
Let we connect with a paper and a pen
Our eyes won't lie to "I miss you"
All I wanted is to be with you

As of now we're heading east
To sail to other lands for a fiest
Not to make love to other girls
I'll finish my job and buy you rose

PTSD 22

Piercing through that troubled gaze
The fields of war fill the vacant stare
Search for peace through the combat haze
Desperate for darkness back “over there”

Pondering fear of a lifetime ago
The desert’s pain fills the empty boots
Still at war, for peace they go
Down in hallowed ground, 21 gun salutes

Pour one more strong for the 22 a day
The men of war can take some more
Saint Peter’s gates open to light the way
Defenders of peace only brave this door

Place your battle outside on the floor
To the warriors’ home in vallhalla’s hall
Soldiers only, long after their war
Day after day, salute 22 More

Chester Michaels

His legs are hairless.
He's the strongest man I know.
Inside his mind he's 18 again, trapped in a constant battle against a now aged enemy.
He's a father, grandfather even.
He sits with his back to the exit, making sure he can protect us.
He is haunted but proud.
He came home on ships full of broken toy soldiers, wound tight and released into an unknown land.
They returned him in less than pristine conditions, cracked and frayed from a war they did not ask for.
His fears and dark thoughts settle in the lines in his face and on the thick skin on his fingertips.
Pill after pill, meeting after meeting, he is tired.
He wants to wash away the things he's seen that he cannot repeat out loud to us.
"He stirs in his sleep." She says.
Trouble and reoccurring demons fighting battles behind his restless eyelids.
He fought for my future.
He fought for my freedoms.
He is my troubled soldier.

We went we saw.
We fought we died.
Some came home.
But changed for life.
From beating hearts within our chest.
And terrors that haunt us to our death.
Were broke were beaten.
Bullied and scared.
We stand together.
From lands afar.
My cover hits the ground my boots in the sand.
A brand new day in a brand new land.

stunning coral reefs
beneath the tidal oceans
a paradise place
colors blending beautifully
the world of marine finery

At dawn on my twenty fifth birthday
416 pilot whales beached themselves,
in the shallow tides at Farewell Spit.

I woke to rain on the wooden roof
of my new flat
and confused myself in unfamiliar blankets and
the words of your message,
written heartfelt and wobbly
in the early hours before morning,

caught in the marine ebb and flow,  
that stranded us too.