Thursday, April 2, 2009

Once in my Youth I went to war . . .


Once, in my Youth, I went to War to preserve the Rights of Others in Another Country.


Think you not that Now, approaching the End of that Life, I would not go again to War to preserve

those selfsame Rights in My Own Country?


HABCAN


The Muster Drum.


Do ye hear the roll of the Muster Drum
Rattlin' in your brain?
Can ye hear the tramp of Redcoat files
Comin' up your lane?
Rifle and horn and hawk ye have.
Will ye join us in The Fight?
Then find a tree or wall, Good Friend,
And mark well your bright front sight!

For they're comin', Lad, they're comin' fast,
Their bayonets agleam.
And maybe we can't stop 'em here
And maybe they'll cross your stream,
To burn your house and barn, my lad,
Put your family out in the night!
Then find a tree or wall, Good Friend,
And mark well your bright front sight!

We can harry 'em, harry 'em, in the road,
‘Til they wish they'd never come
To confiscate our powder and arms
And carry off our Gun!
We can show the World we're Free Men
Who'll Stand, Defend the Right!
Now find that tree or wall, Good Friend,
And mark well your bright front sight!

A Nation of Riflemen we can be,
If you'll enlist and arm and train!
Our ghosts are waiting for you, Friend,
On range and firing lane.
Can YOU hear the roll of the Muster Drum
By your fireside warm and bright?
Will YOU rise to find YOUR tree or wall
And mark well YOUR bright front sight?

For the need is NOW, my stranger Friend,
And it's urgent and it's plain.
The forces ranged against us
Now have everything to gain.
Take up the Call! Raise high your heart!
Answer the Muster Roll!
Stand shoulder-to with Friend and Friend.
Learn teamwork. Have a goal!

And mebbe, just mebbe, you won't be alone
Some cold and fearsome night
When to live you must find your tree or wall,
And mark well your bright front sight!!


HABCAN

RWVA.



For ‘The Squirt’.

There was a time, in ’53, our outfit took a hill,

‘midst shot and shell, and Cold, and Hell

our young lads stormed, until

we’d won the day. What cost to pay?

Five wounded, and The Squirt.

He’s only five foot, in his boots, this little guy-next-door,

With pluck and grit, and ‘tough-as-shit’

He’d made it in the Corps

And now he lay, a castaway,

A rag-bag, in the dirt.

“The President regrets……” they’ll say back home, to his Mom and to his Dad,

and his high-school chums and ‘the corner bums’

and his sweetheart weeping, sad,

unable to say why he died this day

in a hero’s OD shirt.

Well I’ll tell ya Mister, you need to know, I promise I won’t waste your time

for I vowed back then to ‘remember when’,

and I’ve set it to simple rhyme.

He died, in the end, for YOU, my friend,

without thought for fatal hurt.

Did he die for nothing, cold and alone, on that far-flung foreign hill?

Will you let him rest with some of our best

while you turn away further still?

Or take up your gun, and get out in the sun,

And do it, for The Squirt?

For Patriots all it’s a Muster Call, a thing a Man Must Do.

It’s a Heritage thing, “Let Liberty ring!”

and you know it to be true

that to shirk ‘The Call’ is to fail us all.

So just do it, for The Squirt.


March 16, 2006 .

HABCAN 1776.

RWVA.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good Words, HABCAN. You got talent. Thank you.
YeOldFurt

CaptGooch said...

Welcome HABCAN,

Glad to see you over here as well.

Thank You for your Service and your dedication to our Oath and Our Constitution.

The buckets are stacked right over there .... Oh I see you brought your own.

Well Done.

Truth in Posting Disclaimer ....
I too am a member of RWVA.
http://appleseedinfo.org/

Stewart Rhodes said...

As am I! Gee, what's going on here?

Stewart

Oath Keepers said...

All kidding aside, Appleseed is a strong program, teaching both marksmanship and heritage, with the goal of restoring America as a nation of riflemen. We here at Oath Keepers support that mission 100% and it is no surprise at all that many are members of both.

Stewart Rhodes