Before the Dawn

Before the Dawn ©

By

Michael Casey

Last looks at photos of mom

Checking and rechecking kit before the fight

Cursing louder and louder to hide the fear

Playing cards, last chance to get rich before hiding in a ditch

Look at photos of naked girls wishing you could hide within

Prayers half said and wishing you had got wed

You promise you’ll marry the first thing you get back

Rosaries dusted off, and mumbled through,you haven’t got a clue

Lucky charms and Rosaries too kissed and wrapped around your kit

False smiles, and wondering why you came thousands of miles

Hope that you’d get to sample champagne in Paris

Fear that you’d never get back to your aged mom again

Charity sharing your chocolate with your mates

Laugher over the water into the distance

Worry half hidden from each other

But you are each other’s brother

At dawn you will fight and try not to die together

You can hear the bagpipes, the mad piper has begun

The rush of bravery and hope, you will survive and go

All the way to Berlin, Normandy is just the beginning

You will show the Nazis what you are made of.

First off the boat and up the beach a kiss from a French girl

Is almost within reach

Bullets fly, bullets fly but New Yorkers don’t come to die

You are an American and you will be in Paris