Docile plains
Are preserved through trying winds
Ever defiant of the ambient failings of man

A thundering distance
Flairs through night and day  
Billowing with light
At the endless stride of ordinance

Young men
Are doomed to ponder
The lives lead before
And the many squandered

On docile plains
Are patient laborers
Quiet riflemen
Devoid of toil

Scores are taken up
Called upon by valor
As trembling offerings,for colossal glory

A legion of four
Is swiftly assembled
Striding for the inferno
For the menacing edge of their being

What is found
Is their hated other
Ignorant
Of the awaiting savagery that lurks

Quiet sons
On plains much like before
Docile in nature
With winds just the same

They await
Through the ambient mad, far and wide
Rifles slung across their backs
Calm and unaware

Desperate foxholes spring to life
Graced by a familiar and comforting brew
Coffee permeates
Cards are shuffled
Stogies burn
And laughter rings
Peppered with profane and brotherly banter

Among their own
They hardly shudder
At bliss within their mother tongue
They long
They curse
They pray and reminisce
Adrift in their personal and awaiting reveries

Among their own
A brief calm subsides
As the watchful four
Bestow a sudden and vicious
Good morrow

From plains beyond
Death screeches its devilish tune
Pummeling the brevity of quaint humanity

The shards of home
Dash about and mangle
Scathing quiet sons
As they scramble for vengeance
Too few, rebuttal with a rifle’s bark
Destined to laceration
And smoldering gash

The treacherous four
Scurry back for their smoking salvos
Where all heads raise high in belief
“You gave them hell”
“A job well done”