Curtis Jerry Smothers - Freelance Blogger/Tutor
Heading 1
Poems about the soldiers, sailors and airmen who gave everything
I am the ghost of Pittsburgh
In fifty-six I'd say
A Frenchman's musket killed me
They left me where I lay
And then I fought on Bunker Hill
Many red-coats there we saw
Dead in that violent melee
I bled out in the straw
I was there at New Orleans
And the world's last human word
As I aimed my trusty rifle
"Look out!" was all I heard.
I am the ghost of Johnny Reb
I died at old Bull Run
"Up yonder come the Yankees, Boys!"
I was shot by Billy's gun
And I'm the one called Billy Yank
I died at Maryes Hill
I fell in heaps of bodies
As death's hunger had its fill
And then I was a dough boy
Who perished in the trench
As we peered out at the Germans
Who killed off half the French
And then I was a dog-face
Who fought in World War Two
I charged the beach at Normandy
Until a mortar shot me through
At Chosin in North Korea
We froze in blood and snow
Outnumbered, cold, and dying
But we would not let go
In Vietnam's dark jungles
I crept with loaded gun
Where death hung from the branches
And napalm blocked the sun
In Desert Storm’s red sunrise
Where sand and steel collide
I faced the thunder’s fury
And there, I too, have died
I fought the hidden terrorists
Across the Near East sand
In Fallujah and in Kabul
I made my final stand
Now hear me, sons of freedom
Two hundred fifty years
I’ve marched beneath your banners
Through glory, dust, and tears
Soldiers
Sailors
I was a powder monkey
At England’s Flamborough Head
I followed Captain John Paul Jones
But a cannon shot me dead
I became an able seaman
Slept below decks on a shelf
I was shanghaied by the British
And I died in 1812
I joined the Union Navy
In eighteen sixty-four
A rebel musket slaughtered me
On Old Fort Fisher’s shore
At the Battle of Manilla Bay
I was a boiler tender
A boiler blew and burned me dead
Before the Spanish could surrender
Wilson’s war did not end wars
But it surely ended me
I was a Navy bosun
Who fell overboard at sea
I was on the Arizona
When shrapnel sliced me through
As fourteen hundred of my friends
Joined Davy Jones’s crew
I was a gunboat driver
On a river called Mekong
My crew was shot to pieces
By the crafty Viet Cong
Today I crew the steel-hulled ships
And like those who sailed before
I could die for love of country
While my loved ones mourn ashore
So, hats off to the Navy folks
And the ships that go to sea
They keep the sea lanes open
And guard our liberty
American Revolution
We were those winter soldiers
Who stood in Britain's way
"Disperse, ye rebels!" cried the King
"You're in the empire's way!"
We stood our ground at Lexington
Who fired that fateful shot?
But the lobsterbacks retreated
A battle not forgot!
Defeated at Long Island
We fought another day
We surprised the Hessian soldiers
On that Trenton Christmas day
We froze in camps at Valley Forge
Two thousand of us died
But winter thawed, von Steuben came
He drilled us 'till we cried.
And then the Brits outflanked us
Took Phil-a-del-faye-ay
But we chased them back to old New York
And that is where they'd stay.
Up in Saratoga
We thrashed the British still
They surrendered all their army
At the foot of Bemis Hill
And when the Frenchies finally came
We marched south to old Yorktown
And bottled up Cornwallis
And he threw his weapons down
We Continental soldiers
Threw out the British Crown
We gave the gift of liberty
And rest on freedom's ground
Our Civil War
We are the ghosts of Shiloh
Twenty thousand of us dead
Some were killed
In the hornets nest
Some on the surgeon's bed
Now we fly as eagles
Over lines of blue and gray
We hear the shouts
"They're comin' boys!"
As dead soldiers float our way
The Minnie balls and grape shot
Raked those human ranks so clean
They fell like wheat
Before the scythe
Red fields no longer green
And thousands died at Vicksburg
Antietam, Gettysburg
We fell in droves
At Marrye's Hill
Mowed down at Fredricksburg
Our bodies lie in unmarked graves
Our families know not where
They wouldn't know us anyway
For the dirt and worms we share
We are the ghosts of Malvern Hill
The war's last battle fought
If we could have lasted one more week
We'd share that peace they bought
Looking back to '61
When we gave that warlike shout
The Rebel Yell and Yankee cry
Like our youth is now bled out
Why did we fight our countrymen?
We dead can't tell you why
And our leaders ain't a-tellin'
Now with us here they lie
Patriots (Updated Memorial Day, May 25, 2026)
There are those who loved their country
Who gave everything away
Their home, loved ones, and comforts
For freedom's future day
The men who froze at Valley Forge
For freedom's fragile ember
They are the parents of our country
Do not forget: remember!
As they primed Kentucky rifles
And fought those "lobsterbacks"
Just outside of New Orleans
Stopped the British in their tracks
They died to save the Union
Or drive the Yankees from their door
But when Bobby Lee surrendered
They were countrymen once more
They were doughboys in the trenches
Endured the big guns' sound
They repaid our dear friend Lafayette
With white crosses on French ground
Four thousand died at Normandy
To see tyranny dismembered
Gold-Star parents heaved a grateful sigh
When the Japanese surrendered
At Korea's Chosin reservoir
They died in bitter weather
Outnumbered by a gathering storm
Yet fought and held together
Through Mekong's tangled jungle paths
Where hidden dangers lay
They perished in the monsoon rains
And lived from day to day
Two times in Iraq's searing sands
They fought in desert heat
Some gave all on distant ground
Their sacrifice complete
Through Afghanistan's wild sullen heights
Past cliffs and shadowed stone
They died where few would dare to tread
Far from the world they'd known
There is a cost to freedom
It's the coin of sacrifice
It's spent for love of country
And can't be given twice
Some came home to loved ones' arms
Some to a hero's rest
Yet all had borne their nation's trust
And given it their best
Dead patriots gave everything
To freedom’s alabaster
Their graves provide its solid lath
The patriot's its plaster
World War II
1
Our greatest generation
Served in World War Two
Motivated by Pearl Harbor
They knew what they must do
2
They fought in Rommel’s desert
Turned the tide at Coral Sea
They charged across North Africa
And conquered Sicily
3
They slogged up the boot of Italy
Down Normandy’s death grind
They crossed the Rhine through shot and shell
Left shattered towns behind
4
In Pacific’s island leapfrog
On their journey to Japan
They wreaked a bitter vengeance
For the Death March to Bataan
5
They froze in Belgium’s winter
Survived Germany’s last gasp
They broke the Bulge at Bastogne
And undid the Nazi clasp
Next: Still more Poems
Air Force Men and Women
I was with the Army’s fighting wings
In World War Two's dark sky
I cleared the German planes away
As Allied troops marched by
I was the first to Tokyo
In Doolittle's brave adventure
And Enola Gay's atomic flash
Forced Japan's surrender
When Air Force Blue stood on its own
In nineteen forty-seven
I claimed the skies as my domain
A strategic mission given
Above Berlin's beleaguered streets
I foiled the Soviet blockade
I fed a city from the clouds
While the Russians watched afraid
I streaked Korean deadly clouds
Where jet-age battles started
My silver wings held freedom's line
And kept it whole, unparted
In Vietnam my Phantoms flew
Through missile, flak, and thunder
B-52s shook the night
And split the dark asunder
My stealth-black wings crossed desert sands
That Baghdad never sighted
Below me, burning oil wells glowed
As Desert Storm ignited
In Kosovo my bombers came
And struck with grim precision
I forced the tyrant to withdraw
Without a ground collision
When Twin Towers fell in old New York
And war came to our border
I struck from silent heights above
And shattered terror's order
My Eagles ruled the hostile skies
My Warthogs roared below
My tankers bridged the endless miles
Where fighting wings must go
With Reapers, Globes, and satellites
I hunted hidden planners
And brought my wounded safely home
Beneath our nation's banners
From Tokyo's first daring raid
To space-age wings that hover
I write contrails of fire and smoke
In blue above cloud cover
So lift a glass to Air Force Blue
To aircrews clad in thunder
I guard your homes and liberty
Beneath the wild blue yonder
D-Day-June 6, 1942
The wakeup call on our crowded ship
Followed a restless, sleepless night
We hit the decks barefooted
Mere hours before the fight.
Powdered eggs and coffee
Were all we could force down
Would this be our final breakfast?
Which ones would die or drown?
With blackened face and combat kits
Gas masks and digging tools
Our gear could weigh near eighty pounds
As we faced those tidal pools
A quick letter to my family
The last one I would write?
The roiling sea and howling wind
Foretold the coming fight
Cargo nets hung from the deck
We climbed down on shaky legs
Seasickness overtook us
We threw up those powdered eggs
Big naval guns opened fire
Their thunder shook the sky
We headed for the smoke filled beach Beneath the bluffs so high
Machine gun bullets buzzed like bees
Mortars splashed the violent surf
Some landing craft were hit and sunk
Before they touched the hostile turf
“Thirty seconds!” shoults the coxswan
Then “Drop ramps!” the final yell
As bullets rake the opening
Men in the front ranks fell
We jumped into chest-deep water
Our kits they weighed us down
Some fell into deep shell holes
Others sank and quickly drowned
We scrambled from the water
Weighed down by all that gear
Found some seawall cover
And tried to hide our fear
Our sergeants rallied the rest of us
Most officers had died
We rushed the draws toward bunkers
Where the Germans tried to hide
We fought through trenches, bunkers
And concrete machine-gun nests
We drove the Germans from their guns
And earned a brief day’s rest
We dug our foxholes near the beach
And removed our heavy pack
As men, machines, and weapons
Came ashore and had our back
D-Day was just the start of it
We breached Atlantic’s Wall
We all gave some to see it through
While others, they gave all
In a letter to my parentsI wrote on VE Day
I told them I was coming home
Where freedom’s promise lay
Some years later I returned
To Colleville-sur-Mer
It is our soldiers’ resting place
For brave soldiers resting there
Rows of white marble crosses
And Stars of David too
Remind us what freedom costs
When brave men see it through 
6
The road to end the sacrifice
Was paved by many dead
A mushroom cloud at Nagasaki
A bullet to Hitler’s head
7
And those who sacrificed at home
Worked patiently and waited
Here’s to those Gold Star families
Whose grief was consecrated
8
Here’s to those women workers
Rosie and the rest
They riveted and welded steel
To arm our country’s best
9
The greatest generation
Has mostly passed away
But what they gave still lives on
In our gratitude today