They needed fighting men, but they took her boy away.

With God's love and care, he may return safely one day.

He found Army life so lonely, he found it very strange.

He found himself ‘fighting’ straw men all day on the range.

 
Lost, lonely and afraid bayoneting dummies in the sun

He never felt at ease, never got the feel of a soldier’s gun.

Sent away to see action, the horror of the battle ground.

Nothing could prepare him for that, the carnage all around.

 
He now faced real men, not those fake soldiers of straw.

A bayonet that flashed through smoke, he never even saw.

Beside his unfired gun, he fell into a field of bodies and mud.

Another senseless loss of live, another hero who shed blood.


The last of his many letters had just reached his family home.

With no more letters to follow, their worry and fear had grown.

That fear was realised when the news broke late one night.

Their boy had gone forever, a young boy never born to fight

And now on Flanders Fields where all the red poppies mass.

The world will remember every young life that came to pass.

Generations have honoured the heroes, tears fallen river deep.

The poppies that serve to remind us, in the wind gently sweep.