It was hard, damn hard, being from Texas where someone,<\/p>\n
not even a Texan, had killed JFK. He was my hero,<\/p>\n
my reason for joining the military.<\/p>\n
Now here I stood, at rigid attention,<\/p>\n
in the crisp cold air, tears on my cheeks.<\/p>\n
When they ask for volunteers in my military police company<\/p>\n
At Arlington Hall Station, I felt compelled, by duty and<\/p>\n
Love of my country to step forward.<\/p>\n
My attitude, If you don\u2019t love it, don\u2019t feel honor bound to<\/p>\n
serve your country, when asked, leave.<\/p>\n
Leave now. I\u2019ll buy the ticket.<\/p>\n
Yes, I still remember that morning so many years ago.<\/p>\n
I remember the solemnness of de Gaulle, six and a half feet tall,<\/p>\n
standing beside Selassie, five foot two.<\/p>\n
And John-John, with his small American Flag, saluting.<\/p>\n
Here I sit today, some fifty-three years later,<\/p>\n
enjoying the freedom we all enjoy.<\/p>\n
And every single day since \u2018the day,\u2019<\/p>\n
I say a simple prayer because that<\/p>\n
Eternal Flame burns in my heart<\/p>\n
Just as it does at his gravesite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was hard, damn hard, being from Texas where someone, not even a Texan, had killed JFK. He was my hero, my reason for joining the military. Now here I stood, at rigid attention, in the crisp cold air, tears on my cheeks. When they…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":962,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem","category-introductions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/962"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35905,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35347\/revisions\/35905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}