They are Coming Home.

They are coming home for Christmas.

I’ve been hoping.

Its been a long time coming,
And now they are coming home.

A whole generation gone to war

And why?

I can’t remember,

I don’t think I ever knew.

All I know is they

Were young,

Professional,

And maybe willing,

If, not that, maybe job hungry.

But now they are coming home

For Christmas,

And they will find home strange.

We will listen to them,

But not for too long,

Things here have moved on.

The few who talk about the dead

Will talk about the forty-four hundred,

And the thirty – three thousand wounded.

Nobody will talk much about the Iraqi dead,

Their numbers are not like ours,

They are as many as the stars

On a desert night.

By the rivers of Babylon

A child will hear the rumble of

War machines as they pass by

And wonder who these people are

And why they were here,

And wave goodbye.

“Goodbye.”

Farewell warriors,
Fare forward voyagers.

At home there are flowers in the field,

And words of gratitude,

And a mortgaged nation.

It is a Christmas that could use a gift.

You are that gift, but you know that.

We will wonder why we ever sent you

or let you go.

Welcome home.


(And this from Pink Floyd)