'Dole Boys' By Blood In The Sand 1st Posted Oct 1st 2010

10/05/2011 11:57:00 am BenefitScroungingScum 2 Comments

By Blood In The Sand

I logged onto Face book last night and saw some words that filled my veins with ice and left me feeling hollow and desperate.

I'm going to and I'm gonna kill my self Ive had enough of this shit life love you all but this is it good bye

They were written by my friend. He's unemployed and a smack head. You'll find him most days sitting in a pool of blood/sick/shit shouting at passers by. He's not worked for years...

It's the in thing right now to put the boot into folk like my mate. Poncing off the state, a waste of space oxygen thieving bastard right? That's one description I suppose but I prefer 'Veteran.'

I went to war with him once. We walked down Basra road together, murder mile. Body after body lay where they had died. The stench of blood, cordite, roasted meat and petrol stung my nose.

I saw my mate sitting down next to a mangled heap of twisted metal, flesh, bone and misery. He was smoking a cigarette and tapping his fingers on his helmet.

'You OK mate?' I asked, then wished I hadn't. How could any of us be OK in that shit hole.

He nodded at me. 'Yeah man, it's all just a bit... Well you know.' I nodded back, I was 19 years old and dead teenagers were all around me. My mate was 17 and we called him Junior.

Junior came home a little different, we all did. He then went to Bosnia and then he left the army. No longer part of the machine he turned to drugs to take away them dead kids on that piece of road that took a bite out of our souls.

I saw him a couple of months ago, he looks 60 years old now, he's 37. We stood in the line, carried rifles and saw things that hurt us inside. Tears have fallen, veins have filled with heroin and we still walk the road.

We live among society, some of us in jails, others in the gutter. What we need isn't pity, it's a hand. Junior has mine and last night was a cry for help. Others won't be heard.

I wrote some words once...

Veteran.

It isn't nice to have to beg the country you once served,
On bended knee with cap in hand a fate quite undeserved.

Once shiny boots now gather dust and medals hide away,
And dead men crawl through silent dreams when darkness steals the day.

Be the best the small screen cried enlist before the crown,
How many of the best are now locked up in iron towns.

The freedom they once fought to save is no longer theirs,
These broken troops a burden on societys affairs.

And what of those who gibber nightly screaming in their beds
As worms crawl through the the faces of the teenage freshly dead.

And dare not mention names of those who could not bear this strife,
Who with rope or blade or happy pills did away with life.. 


reposted in full with permission from Blood In The Sand

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This poem fills me with so much sadness... and politicians still send the young to war for the sake of big business.

Robert said...

Or for the sake of making politicians rich, after all Tony Blair made a killing in more ways then one.....