Stryker Brigade News

A Soldier’s Thoughts

Up on the last morning and off to work,
As the thoughts of uncertainty start to lurk.
Say your goodbye’s and step onto a bus,
Time for the mission, success is a must.
Get off the bus for a plane to a foreign land,
The fear builds sweat beads in the palm of your hand.
Where are we going? What are we doing there?
Will anyone write? Does anyone truly care?
Not knowing about home is the hardest part,
The plane lands and it's time to start.
Time to give Iraq the opportunity to be free,
It’s hard to believe this is happening to me.
Running missions with your friends all around,
Most nights gunfire and explosions are the only sound.
The letters pour in with love from home,
And you realize that you are not alone.
Friends and family letting you know that they care,
You know that you are in everyone’s nightly prayer.
Everyday you dream of when it comes that time,
To reboard that plane, back to where freedom is mine.
Back to reality here, people shoot and people die,
You have to soldier on, trying not to cry.
Hoping that your family will not get that letter,
Trying to make a foreign population lives better.
Making a difference is why we signed on,
So we run missions until the break of dawn.
None of us want to die in this lonely place,
We simply want to succeed with a smiling face.
The greatest paycheck of all, will be to see,
These people's first ever opportunity to be free.
Yet people at home protest and hold their signs,
While we try to dodge bullets and land mines.
They don’t understand what a deployed soldier goes through,
I’d love to see them go one deployed day in my shoes.
If they did, they’d see these houses of mud and clothes of rags,
Then they’d cross that protest line to join the vets waiving flags.
But that doesn’t matter, they are not here, we are,
Dealing with people and customs that are quite bizarre.
It’s scary not knowing when we will depart,
Asking ourselves when will this be over from the start.
Everyday brings a new mission, new sites to see,
We’ll have spent a year patrolling this country.
Some Iraqi’s love us, some hate the fact that we are here,
Some wave at us, some simply stand and leer.
Overall it doesn’t matter, we just have to finish the job,
From building schools to controlling a rioting mob.
Someday we will return home, a little wiser and one year older,
And we can be proud we fought for freedom as an American Soldier!

by Specialist Danny Allen Barrett Jr.
Samarra, Iraq
January 4, 2004