But there is always the funny side to war

Just four of us about 3000 feet up on the side of a mountain
Our home an overhang in the rocks
With a great slab of fallen rock in front
Perfect and the only other residents scorpions, centipedes and camel spiders
About 2am, time for a shovel reccee
( never done in daylight)
Anyway a brilliant full moon
No grey shades just black and white
Drop my shorts and squat
Straight onto a cammel thorn bush
Not a problem except those thorns could be an inch long
Oh what fun my mates had with a pair of pliers

Night radio watch, silent, eirie, nervous
After all we were in their territory
A rattling banging noise just a few yards away
******* bricks I put 32 rounds of 9 mil
In there from my sterling
I killed every cooking *** we had and the cooker
The cat ran out without a mark

A work of pure fiction, a message to all the thousands of young men who chose to flee from a Syrian mother*

All of you who've turned you backs and left to leave us to our fate
Like cowards you have run while we have enemies at our gate
YOU, yes you who could have taken up the gun
To fight for those who have already given sons
Does our country mean so little, the heritage you have left
Is now living in a foreign land better than honourable death
Yes, you now sit in a tented camp, while world news shows our death throes
Do you not now sit in deepest shame
As at home the death toll grows

You know I've walked on the wrong side of hell
Felt the stinging bite of shot and shell
Seen the bodies and smelt the blood
Of those so young

Ultimately my choice in life
Cost me my first love who was my life
She couldn't live with what might be a last goodbye
Worrying constantly about the knock on the door

I left the army thinking things might change
And so covert security became the game
In her eyes the risk remained the same
In fact the risk was higher

Combined with nightmares in the darkest hours
When I would scream and yell
And the whiskey bottle always by my side
Was more than she could bare

And so we parted

I was mentally a shattered wreck
Although I always kept my job
The bottle my constant companion
The dreams, nightmares hidden

But one day I started to write
I don't know why, it just happened
And I discovered that I could share my darkest thoughts
With others who would and could understand

Poetry gave me the release from myself
Because talking to you was somehow impersonal
You were just names on a page back then
But now you are a family
Thank you for I have regained sanity
Through you

Firstly apologies to anybody this offends*

Your God(s) more people have died in the names of your
Various Gods and religions than for any other reason
Now surely the great and mighty being Gods various
Have the power to prevent this
My religious friends tell me that this is the various Gods
Testing our resolve to be good

( At this point I usually have a silent laugh)

After all at what point do the Gods decide?

Now my God, nature, well there are no atrocities
You see nature takes only the sick, weak, or dying
And thus the balance is maintained
The strong take only the sick and dying
They don't indiscriminately **** because
The gemsbok doesn't agree with the creed of the lion
The Lion doesn't visit the destruction of genocide
Upon the Impala in the pursuit of total dominance
No the Lion kills only what is needed to ensure
The survival of the species

Thus is the way of nature from the largest to the smallest predator

Humanity in its wisdom says
I have a bigger gun and a more destructive bomb
I'm guided by my God
(In the army I had God, religion and right
Stuffed down my throat)
So God said drop that ICBM and **** who it kills
For it is the weapon of righteousness
For ISIS and their God the weapon is fear
The need of all the so called Gods
Is **** the weak, follow my calling or die
Because I don't need non believers

Well my God is nature
My temple the fields, forests and wide open spaces
And yet some of you will still say I'm wrong