Falklands : A Falklands Poem
Submitted by Falkland Islands News Network (Juanita Brock) 13.11.2007 (Current Article)
Gus Hales tells it like it is in a moving poem recited at the Cathedral in Stanley on Remembrance Sunday.
Photo (c) J. Brock (FINN) The Sama'82 Standard
DEEP IN MY MIND WHERE NOBODY GOES
By Gus Hales
The SAMA'82 Standard was dedicated at the Liberation Monument on Saturday, 10 November 2007.
Every year on Remembrance Sunday
I sit in the corner of the British Legion Bar,
Dressed in blazer, shirt, Regimental tie
And polished shoes, with my head held high.
But deep in my mind, where nobody goes,
I see a wooden cross where the wind of victory lies.
“Three Cheers for Victory,” I hear the politician say.
But you never asked me about my victory.
And, if they did, I would have explained it this way:
It isn’t your flags or emblems of war,
Or the marching of troops past the Palace’s door.
It isn’t Mrs. Thatcher on the balcony high,
Reaffirming her pledge to serve or die.
But it’s the look and the pain on a teenager’s face
As he dies for his country, In a far off place.
It’s the guns and the shells and the Phosphorus grenades
And the wounded and the dead in freshly cut graves
Or the grieving wife or the fatherless child
Whose young, tender life will be forever defiled.
Or the iconic soldier with a shattered mind
Who takes the suicide option for some peace to find.
Well, that’s my victory but no one knows
For its deep in my mind where nobody goes.
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