Defunct Soldier Poem by Jan Oskar Hansen

When I met him he was an homeless old soldier, one who has fought
every war in the last hundred years, cannon, fodder for big business
and those who say that our society needs to be saved from migrants.
The last war he fought was in Fallujah this time he was an American
soldier who believed in the righteousness of his mission, only to find
when he came home and demobbed, he was alone in a world that
took no interest in his war of freedom.

Undeterred he went to Afghanistan and fought there, another war that
had no meaning other than keeping licensed warriors in employment.
The common soldier is forty and never rose above the rank of sergeant,
old soldiers are not officer material, they just go on fighting were they
are sent, and sadly since the world War Two there has not been a honest
war, but that is not the concern of the nameless soldier who every year
in Paris, we put flowers on his grave.