Shepherd and the Wolf

The Shepherd came with promise bright
And lead them from the path
Ancestral wolves learned to be sheep
And join the Shepherd’s flock

Darkness comes, the storm winds howl
The Wild Hunt rides the night
Bright of eye and swift of limb
The tireless pack behind

Year on year behind the cross
The Shepherd sends them on
Water well the raven’s field
Where no sheep can long endure

Ground that shatters steel and men
Sky’s that rain death and fire
Faithful sons and daughters burn
In madness and in fire

Darkness comes, the storm winds howl
The Wild Hunt rides the night
Bright of eye and swift of limb
The tireless pack behind

Shattered limbs and shattered minds
To broken homes return
Cast out from the Shepherds flock
Whom the Wolf Lord’s ways now know

As garbage cast upon our streets
Our shame, our broken best
Madness haunts their every dream
Their strength and joy both flown

Darkness comes, the storm winds howl
The Wild Hunt rides the night
Bright of eye and swift of limb
The tireless pack behind

Broken lives and broken minds
The Lord of the Grave to take
Broken limbs and mortal guilt
Fall from the rising wolves

Darkness comes the storm winds howl
The Wild Hunt rides the night
Bright of eye and swift of limb
The tireless pack behind

John T Mainer
To the homeless veterans; those who left parts of themselves behind on foreign fields that no science can restore.

I did know. it is heart breaking. And words I can not use. We should not treat veterans that way.

We should not treat people that way

What can we do to fix it?

Yes, I did know. The library is home to some during the day.

Some myths are dangerous. The myth of the citizen soldier who can leave hearth and home, walk a season in hell, and walk smiling back to the white picket fences he left. Good 50's TV; a time marked by rampant spousal abuse, substance abuse, as the boys coming home found that fantasy scant comfort for what lived behind their eyes.

Oddly enough, we have so much understanding of PTSD now, and yet our wars are fought not so much by long service professionals in a culture with a context for what they are going through, but with reduced full time military and huge numbers of unprepared reservists cycled through, and kicked to the street while they still have no reportable problems. Reservist training prepares them to fight, and do their jobs. Rotating back straight to home is like stepping onto another planet where everyone around you uses the same language, but with different dictionaries. Not everybody can find their way through the transition. Many are lost. Too many.