Soldiers from Mentoring Task Force – Three (MTF-3) move away from a helicopter landing zone, after loading Australian casualties wounded by an improvised explosive device on a Bushmaster, in the Chora Valley, southern Afghanistan. Photo by Able Seaman Jo Dilorenzo.

There’s them, There’s us

24/04/202224/04/2022 Mick Shave 1642 Views 0 Comments By Michael Shave

Stand at ease;
Attention;
Move to the right in threes.
Orders, orders, orders,
Some of which were these.

But really it was those not heard
That struck the strongest chord,
And we who formed up on the square,
We, who you lot sent ‘out there’,
We, who win because we dare;
We who draw the sword;

Are ever linked by what’s not heard,
By history shared, our common lot;
Intensive training, focused word,
And ever Duty First averred;
And you who know what you’ve incurred,
How can you think that we do not?

For when it’s death that you accept
(If on the job you lose the plot),
You sit this side of what is what,
Hearing things that they do not;
Forever in your anguished dreams
Squeezing off the killing shot.

By Michael Shave

FILE PHOTO: Soldiers from Mentoring Task Force – Three (MTF-3) move away from a helicopter landing zone, after loading Australian casualties wounded by an improvised explosive device on a Bushmaster, in the Chora Valley, southern Afghanistan. Photo by Able Seaman Jo Dilorenzo.

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