A dazzling, dilapidated Colonel,

Who had served lengthy years for his Country

Beneath the far-flung Desert skies...

Stepped solemnly into Church.

He marched his boots to the glinting pew;

His stomach began to lurch

As, from his Strategic mind, burst forth a silent, irrational cry:

"I have commanded thousands of Men, across an Ocean, into strife and mud.

Many hundreds of them lie buried: broken, a distant strand soaked in their blood.

Many more will never leave that shore, forever honored and unnamed.

I will not Believe that they fought and died in vain."

Then, from the twirling Air of the lofty Vault, etched with bright freizes of miracles and Men,

Came, in silent answer to the Colonel's beseeching, the Words of He who guards all Hosts, His Angelic armies, trillions-ten.

"And what would you Believe?

Up spoke the Colonel, silently again:

"They fought for America and you."

"And what is America, proud Warrior?

Again the Colonel whispered, firm in his conviction:

"I've seen much of of Your wide world. It is cruel and brutal and steeped in Tyranny; America is Freedom."

"Yet you have never walked beneath her marble domes, where the rats of Treason devise their schemes.

You have not seen what she has become.

There was once a Dream that was your Country.

Men could only whisper it.

Anything above a whisper, and it would vanish... it was fragile.

Some fear or hope it will not survive to see next year.

It is you, and Men like you, who must rekindle that Dream's flame.

Will you not accept this great honor that I have offered you, and laid upon the Anglo-Saxon name?"

The Colonel, baffled, reeled back within his mind.

His spirit staggered and bent and cried aloud,

For to muster all denial that could this dread Truth hide.

Then he spoke:

"With all my heart, no."

There was silence, waiting and cold,

And then:

"Child, that is why it must be you."