You Don't Know Me

You Don’t Know Me

You think you know me but I say I am not whom you think.

Yes, I am an old man who has a kind and gentle voice

You’ve always known me as a hard working man,

Yet a man who took time from work to play with his children.

You have called me sentimental because I cried for a friend,

But you have not seen the real me, I’ve been hiding for so long.

I wanted you to think I was a kind and gentle man,

But the truth is, a fire has raged within me all these years.

Many times I thought of quenching the fire with blood

Of ending the life you never knew.

But something has always stopped me dead in my tracks.

Twas the battle inside of me, wouldn’t let me quit or give in.

You may have noticed, I tended to shy away from crowds,

And I seldom took a voice against your views.

I wanted no limelight for me, oh no, the darker the better.

But the world is changing and our values are being forgotten.

I have come to let you know about the man you never knew,

Perhaps together, we can fight and win just one more battle.

I came from a family built on love and a strong belief in God,

We paid our debt to live free in the land of plenty.

We served our military, all of us, without a second thought.

But only I served our country in the rice paddies of Vietnam.

As Vietnam vets, we did our duty, and too many paid the ultimate price

I still hear their screams of their tortured pain, it plagues me every day.

We came home to a country that called us baby killers,

We were spat on and some of us were clubbed.

So we learned early on to keep our stories to ourselves.

And for that we suffered alone and profoundly.

But now you need to know, We aren’t finished

And the country we need to fight for is our own.

We refuse to give our country to the forces that seek its death.

We stand ready and willing to fight for every hard working American.

Who still cannot speak for themselves but who holds the truth.

We are among the aged of our country but our spirit is fresh.

We are willing, perfectly willing to stand between evil and good,

In obedience to our pledge to serve and defend our constitution.

We have fought for those oppressed before and we will again

It is the way it should be for the warriors of our day.

We will fight for the voices that may have been silenced

But make no mistake, we will fight for total victory.

We seek no medals nor do we seek fame.

Our goal and what this war is for, is our human rights as Americans

Do not let the missing limbs or the wheelchairs bother you,

For there is still a lot of punch in our old bones.

Do not be persuaded to move in our stead, but stand with us,

We are capable and our force is many.

We will fight as brothers once again, till death do us part,

It is our mission and we will not be deterred.

c pickler 3/24/2010