Gert Strydom - Something Greater

I saw soldiers in pain,
some shot up, soldiers wounded
and some bandaged
doing their duty
and some even going insane,

I saw heroic men
going far beyond duty
not thinking of themselves
and more about the welfare of others
and some of them were doing exceptional things.

The were men who lived as if today
was the only day and if tomorrow
would never come
and all of them to me
were the greatest of men,

but then there were bullets holes
even on the church wall
like the blasphemies of man

chipping away at the greater good
where a minister of God stood
with a bible in his hand

and that holy man had something
clinging to him, as if God Himself
surrounded, embraced him
with utter goodliness, being humble and sincere
and that was something greater
than any man I ever had met.

Gert Strydom

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/something-greater/