Hero

Roebrt Lee Ireland as a young man

The stars and stripes were lain across his coffin

On the day of his memorial service.

Afterwards, to be solemnly folded

By his only son, my brother,

Who bore it next to his heart,

And shed his share of tears.

I didn't know the young man from Iowa

Who volunteered to help his country win the war.

He did not often speak of those times;

Though he went, not with a gun,

But with helping hands and heart;

Serving with the medical corps,

He sent his ambulances to France,

To help bring our boys back alive.

He wrote letters to the moms and dads

Whose sons did not return.

Long after the war was over,

His service to his county continued.

New times meant new weapons.

For him it meant learning new ways

To manage the dangers

And heal the injured.

Rising to the rank of Colonel

It was many years before he bid

A final farewell to his military career;

And moved his family off-base,

To live as civilians.

We'd been a few short weeks in our new home;

When a car struck two children,

Near my own age of nine,

On the street in front of our house.

I remember the older one, the blonde girl,

Standing so still, so shocked, on the curb,

As her little brother lay stuck beneath the car,

With his mangled bicycle.

He went out to them, my dad did,

And he sat down in the street,

In front of the car.

He held that boy's hand,

And spoke to him,

Softly, and calmly,

Until the ambulance arrived.

And on that day,

As I watched out the window,

My dad was my hero.