A post for Veterans

One Sunday in 2006, a young guy comes up to my Jewelry & Watch Repair kiosk in the Silver City Galleria Mall (Taunton, MA).  He showed me a item I had made on commission several months before, a sterling silver plate in the shape of a dog tag with a cross cut out, it had been a gift to him from a friend that had shipped out to Iraq the previous year.  He asked me to make him some plain ones, without the cutout.  He was shipping out for Iraq soon & wanted to have them engraved with something to give to his family & friends.  I got all fifteen of them done in two days.  After he told me what he wanted them for, I thought about what I would put on them, if I were going off to war.  This is what I came up with. 
Pax,
Jim

US Navy FTG2(SS) 1973-1979

I Have Chosen!

I have chosen this Duty.
I can not let it pass.

Not because I won't miss you,
nor that I love you less,
but because I love you more.

I have chosen this Duty,
To defend our Country,
our People, our Home. 
To defend you.

I have chosen this duty,
to be one of the "Rough Men".
Keep me in your heart until I return.

" We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. "
George Orwell

Copyright 2006 J. M. Revells