Did the Memories Fade?
I don’t know war, have never seen
The sights and sounds of what had been…
Four years of hell for my Dad and brothers
For John and Hugh and Len and others
They must have faced death many times
And lived through horrors left behind
In Changi, Thailand and various areas
Amid starvation dysentery, malaria
Reading accounts of those who survived
And who were a part of our dads’ lives
At a time when mates were needed most
And childhood left behind, forever lost
Why didn’t I ask him about that time
To understand about his pain
But I only knew him as my Dad
And not the Prisoner of War life that he had
The fighting, being wounded and captured by Japs
Animosity absent… Religion perhaps?
That quietened his soul and helped him survive
Though skeletal and sick, he got out alive
He had seven kids and a beautiful wife
And started to live a different life
From the one long ago… Did the memories fade?
Of the beatings endured on the railway they made
Or did they face forward with a heart full of hope
And leave the past to rot in the mud
To carry on regardless with what they had
And occasionally remember their mates in the grave
We came to pay tribute to all of the brave
Who we know, that have now gone to their grave
And their eternal rewards that they truly deserve
For the agonies endured for the country they served
Without questioning at all what would happen to them
They willingly joined up, thousands of men
To fight for our country with national pride
Believing they would come home victorious – alive
But War is not an adventure to choose
It is real lives being torn and all eventually lose
If not by the bullets and bombs that were dropped
Then the camps, degradation and death not stopped
And the lives that are lived well after the war
Are tainted by atrocities not seen before
And memories of them may not fade
But make you remember the mates that you had
Lives may go on and normal may seem
But the scars are still there unnoticed, unseen
Until you look closely at the men who came back
And realise they have just smoothed over the crack
My Dad was a wonderful, wonderful man
Who would give the shirt off his back to any man
He taught us to give and forgive and love all
He had to give back, for surviving the war
He gave out money and peace and God
And wanted us all to follow him home
To that wonderful place where he’s finally at peace
With his God and his memories all put to rest
But so many mates just didn’t come home
To create a family tree all of their own
But the Waterford legacy will definitely live on
Through us, the descendents of heroes - bar none.
(To commemorate our trip to Thailand 20/4/06 in tribute to Dad and Uncle John who worked on the Burma Thailand Railway)
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