May2011_THE SOLDIERS SON
© Linda East, April 2011
A hush descends upon the school parade
as four hundred children stand straight and tall,
but one child stands out from the rest
his back pulled straighter than them all,
and as the Last Post sounds out its cry
beneath the April sun,
his pride is on show for all to see,
this boy the soldier’s son.
He’s been to many different schools
that’s the nature of living military life,
but he doesn’t mind being an army kid
nor his mum an army wife,
and when his teacher asks “when you leave school,
what do you want to do?”
He replies “I want to be like my father miss,
I’m going to be a soldier too”.
He’s not exactly sure what his father does
though he knows he’s in some kind of war,
and it’s not the first time he’s gone overseas
they’ve had to say goodbye before,
when with each parting hug his dad says gently
“take real good care of your mum”,
and he whispers back “of course I will dad,
you know I’m a soldier’s son”.
He yearns for his dad to come home now
this tour of duty has gone on for far too long,
and he tries so hard to be a brave young man
and show everyone that he’s strong,
even if his young mind can’t quite grasp
what it all means – the tanks and bombs and guns,
he believes that all around the world right now
there waits at home, many a soldier’s son.
So as the days are being counted down
to when this long deployment ends,
and as he settles in at this new school
and makes a few new friends,
he knows he may have to move on soon,
there’s more work to be done,
but that’s okay, that is his job
he is a soldier’s son.
