The World's Greatest Cynic

He kisses his wife, he kisses his kids: Goodbye little ones

I go to keep you safe at home

I sew the seeds, that freedom needs, with necessary war

And liberty's path is paved in bone

A breastplate, a sabre, shanks encased in steel

A hell hound's helm in static howl

We go to bring a savage folk nobility and culture

Of us, they should have never run afoul

The raw recruit sits next to him, and listens to past glories

Upon the galley under sail

Soon enough the reach the land of plenty, where he knows

Civility will once more fail

And he swings his sword

The finely honed edge of lust

A tool in a greater war

Led into the wilds by trust (a soldier does as he must)

(Descent fueled with disgust)

Cloven skulls

Shattered teeth

Blood surrounds him

No means of retreat

Fight

Fight against the heathens that endanger his life

Bringing progress to barbarians and leading them at sword-point march

Making of his weapons and his rage, a gift

A gift they don't deserve in a classroom not their choosing

A stern lesson may be the only one they learn

Submission is the only way the tutelage is ended

Hegemony: we do it to save our lives

Our methods are superior and clearly we deserve to rule

Can't control, battle thirst

The thoughts slow, doubts dispersed

Rationale, irrelevant

Peace does not, even exist

The soldier becomes the world's greatest cynic

He's seen it all

But perhaps there is intrinsic value in life

It just could be diversity provides the spice

But what would he do, oh what would he say

If he looked at the faces of the foes he had slain?

The thought consumed him

He could not let it be

He probed at it as if it were a wound

He burned with curiosity

His mind conjured an itch

That, if not scratched threatened to implode

It came upon him after combat

A feeling like the one

Many men get as they kill, with a hard-on

It lasted longer than he thought possible

He felt like a starving man trying not to eat a corpse

And he reaches his foe

Undoes a chinstrap

Removes the bassinet

Unveils a child!

A boy not much senior to his own

He senses the parallels

Grasps the context

Loses his sanity which is gone forevermore

The face, so beautiful in death

Pain recedes

Serenity is gained to continue past life

Children! He'd been killing children

He'd never pondered on the youth of his profession

Compared to them he was an old-timer

Despite the gulf between them

His and theirs acted the same

Sending boys out killing boys with grown men overseers

He knew now

What he'd done

Was killed the son

Of everyone

If he changed

If he repent

He'd be caged

By his government

For the soldier is sacred

But the objector is hated

And shunned

Until the war is done

His whole life, made no sense

Deep ingrained, violence

Only the war

Before we even stood erect