It was the Fourth of July, a soldier looked up and saw fireworks bursting in the air. 

His American Dream was to support his son, who thought of him as a hero. 

His son believed he fought for freedom. 

He believed he fought on the battlefield of liberty, where patriots soared in the sky

In the name of a tattered sheet of multi-colored nylon,

the soldier was meant to protect the oppressed,

to put an end to war and share the blessings of democracy, 

so that everyone could finally sit around a fire and be at peace.

Yet by the end of his war, only one of these things came true,

the world is burning, and its people too. 

Feasting on the bodies of young men, the bald eagle has become a vulture.

The soldier, a heroic murderer, commanded by monsters.  

And by the orders of monsters the hero lost his life to man.

Ordered to kill another who had a son as young as his own,

who believed that Daddy was protecting him from the American nightmare. 

The fireworks laid down as ash onto the Soldier’s skin.

He knew freedom was already dead.

The soldier fell, and his enemy, too.

Liberty saw the world lose two fathers that day. 

Two heroes, two villains, two men,

two sons will now grow up with hatred for the other,

scarred by generations of misplaced animosity.

The boys go to war to honor their fathers 

And the cycle continues forevermore like an unholy phoenix,

rising from the ashes of war, only to fall again. 

For the soldier who lives on the battlefield,

Home is hell.