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