You Have A Commitment To High Ideals

[Kulturkampf]

This is a poem I am proud of:

YOU HAVE A COMMITMENT TO HIGH IDEALS (AND YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE)

You have a commitment to high ideals and you don't know what they are;
now they have crept up on you as a death sentence in a foreign swamp,
shirt stuck to you through sweat and a you have a dirty face;
a half grin comes upon you as you remember a day when you were a teen-ager.

You came home on the last day of school with your friends and asked your dad for a beer --
You were 18 and your dad smiled and gave you one of his own.
You and your friends walked around the town and talked about baseball players and coquettish girls,
you spent the night drinking beer until you could afford only one more --
you shared it and parted ways forever to go to a jungle and to fight a war for an Empire.

Now a terrible sound familiar to a war movie on a screen rages and you've forgotten to lie low --
a bullet collapses you and you no longer complain of water in your boots or your pungent smell,
but you look to the heavens and complain to a god that you are here.

Did you die for a Nation or as a soldier of the righteous?
Did you die in the name of something better?
Maybe not.
Did you die because you live as a Samurai or a Knight?
Did you die because you were too brave?
Maybe not.

You have a commitment to high ideals, you thought, and you couldn't put your finger on them.
It was something about a nation and a hometown,
and something about a baseball player you saw hit a homerun and a girl whose hand wandered into yours during a film;
It was something about a photograph of your grandfather when he was younger and wearing a uniform;
it was something about a glorious song and a book you once read about an Adventurer
and it was something about wanting to be a man, no matter what, and to die as a man.

You smiled lazily and looked at the god and said: forget it.

You have a commitment to high ideals,
and you don't know what they are.