Going Home for Christmas

Heading home on Christmas Eve, From a long and brutal war, He’ll start his final journey, From across a distant shore, He boards the waiting aircraft, While its props spin in the night, On a journey that will finally take him home. He’d fought the epic battles, In Fallujah and Kirkuk, Was wounded twice at Al Asad From fragments that he took, He drove the convoy’s trucks From al-Taqaddum to Mosul, As he counted down the days till he was home. So now his tour is over All deployments have their ends, As the plane rolls down the runway Then into the night ascends, But he’s numb to the commotion Dead within his metal box, In a coffin that is finally headed home. Just twenty-one years old this month, And lost among the flocks, He’s more to be remembered, Then a name stamped on a box.