The Sentry, #MFRWHook

Although my excerpts for the MFRW Book Hooks blog are usually romance. This week's book hook is another clip from Hearth and Sand. Instead of a ghost story like last week's clip from "Echoes From The Valley," presented for your consideration another aspect of sentry duty. Another difference is that instead of an excerpt from a short story, this week's book hook features selected verses from the poem aptly titled, "The Sentry." Like the other stories in the collection that comprises Heart and Sand, "The Sentry" reflects a continuity of service from the past to the present.

Although the poem pertains to a tomb of an unknown soldier, the inspiration for this piece did not come from the memorial in Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Instead it was from a day when solemn commemorations held in a small town to mark the one-year anniversary of 9-11-2001 replaced the laying of a wreath in Arlington or the toss of one into the sea. The image of a sentry was a solitary bagpiper atop a hill. The flag was not draping a casket but hoisted from the extended ladder of a firetruck. A line of helmets atop empty boots symbolized the cost of duty.

Excerpt:

Eerie notes float across the field
A signal that day is done.
But not for me... not for me
I am the chosen one.

My task is simple
The command understood
To stand my post
Here at the edge of the woods.

From each generation one soul is drawn
From among the honored dead.
No name is known, no one can mourn
He is a chosen one, a sentry for the dead.

And now I join them
An American soldier known but to God.
We came from desert, jungle, and field.
I am the latest of the lost.

**  END OF EXCERPT ***

For the rest of the poem, I hope you'll consider buying Hearth and Sand. Amazon    More Ebook Sellers 

The tales in Hearth and Sand cross genre from contemporary to historical, and science fiction to poetry and are a collection of twelve tales of those who served on the front lines and the stories of loved ones left behind who preserved the home front. Set universes apart and separated by decades in time, the stories in Hearth and Sand reflect a continuity of service from the past to the present and into the world of tomorrow. Although the events are fictional, the voices captured within these pages came from historical notes, veterans’ own words, letters left by their ancestors, or contemporary events. Pen was put to paper while watching fighter planes land in the Philippine Islands and in the shaded woods of a stateside farm.


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