Legacy of a Soldier

He clutched his gun with fear in his heart, Not knowing what to expect;

Trying to recall through clouded thought, What his squad commander had said.

He wiped his brow with a dirty hand, As he crouched behind the tree;

There were corpses lying all around of him, As far as he could see.

Then he heard the first shot of the day, Then saw the first man die;

And before he got out to fight, He looked up to the sky.

Then he fought long and hard, Until he ran out of breath;

And a bullet, only one it took, Brought him to his death.

He came a boy but died a man, In the bloody battlefield;

But die , he did, with head held high, To fear he did not yield.

Cry did many of his friends, When his dead body they had seen;

And said to themselves, Some to one another, “What a fine lad he had been!”

Now he lies buried underneath, With silence overhead;

The very soil he had fought for, Is forever his resting bed.

Fade away, did all his friends, With them his legacy;

But the truth remains, he was a soldier, As brave as brave can be.

-Siddharth Sengupta, Class X

(A poem penned by my son when he was in Class X (and I was commanding my infantry battalion in J&K).