Please excuse this yearly post: As some of you know I was called up on 9-12 to work Ground Zero. We got there on 9-13. Months later as I tried to cope with some of my thoughts "while seating on many planes" I wrote five poems. Here are four, it took me three years to go back to Ground Zero and relive everything. The first poem is about looking at the TV guide channel and seeing eighty something blank channel listings, and everything else. The second poem is when I got the call from Bud Malmstrum who was one of the "leaders". The third poem is of the Iron Workers- true men of steel and honor. The fourth is of me and a Colorado K-9 Firefighter taking a break eating pizza from one of the many New Yorkers giving everything they had. 1) WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING DEATH OF THE MORNING No one started the day smelling roses, while sitting down to morning breakfast. No one woke up looking at his or her loved ones saying, “I’m thankful to start a new day with you. No one knew. WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you – Evil, pure and simple. We interrupt your regular scheduled programming to show you “that you are regular”. That terror is not just across the ocean, but also across the street. To show you what CNN could never do, to ask you what your conscience would never ask. We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to see what happens when “Death from above” really comes calling. IT’S TIME It’s time to see if patriotism lasts longer than the next big televised event. How long will our Soap Opera’s be off when “we are the Soap Opera’s?” It’s time to see if a land of individuals can once again become a Country of one, one Nation, under “your” God, with Duty and Honor for all. 2)GET READY It started at childhood, playing with sticks and toy guns. This life I chose, to protect, serve, kill and destroy. Thirty years of preparation, practice, waiting for the call. Watching it unfold “live, via surround sound”, 40 million play by plays, “it’s the only show in town”. A simple “get ready, we may go”. What to pack, courage, a cold heart? Compassion has no place; self-preservation took all the room. Get ready. How? Relive all the hidden moments of you’re your life, open doors you have “finally” closed. Or do you just stay numb? As we ride into Knighthood, as so many men before, with our boyish giggles and manly thoughts, I keep thinking; how many people shake hands with their nightmares. As we see the Lady of Grace, death and darkness at her feet, I cry inside. Get ready, put the gear out, telling yourself don’t look up, don’t think, just work. Get ready, the gray ghosts need you, the men and women of red and blue, covered in suet and soil, faceless movement, one foot in front of the other, one brother in front of another. Get ready. 3)MEN OF IRON The dust and dirt hides their Union patch, no need, no one is leaving this job. Working a high-rise beam, three stories down, side by side with the hated, feared, and finest. Hey, Blue, why you wearing your gun, what you going to shoot “down here”, the ground? No, but I will protect my sleeping Brothers till they are all found! Hey blue, lesson learned. The man of iron head down, frozen in a moment of thought, maybe you’re not so bad. Maybe we all work without a net. Hey, blue, the iron man yells, with a face that says it’s one of you. The man of iron places a soft hand on a uniform sleeve, and waits. 4)PIZZA Sitting on a sidewalk, South East corner, eating pizza. Watching the National Guard in their pink masks, looking out I think how pretty all the lights are, like Christmas on a misty night. Damn! And let me add one this year for all the people who gave their all afterwards: I wrote this one for my daughter Michelle Scheetz, who spent 3 tours in the Middle East. Now unfortunately I have to add this for my "friends of the fold"; say any jokes about her being a "sandwich maker" and I will not take it as a joke and I will simply say you know me well enough to know I will defend her honor. "Not joking"! WHAT IS LEFT- RIGHT Palm dress never suited me, Dress Blues fit much better. Two hash marks, lots of scares, finally getting mine. Finally getting to do my job. Damn, it’s about time. Yes Sir, no Sir. No rear with the gear this time. Maybe still considered a “rear with gear” but I AM HERE! Here with the boys. Loved, hated or just another rifle, makes me know mind. I know who I am, tits held high, just like the boys. But, can I cry, can I still be me, or will someone have time in battle to see.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 16:36:04 +0000