The Sheepdogs

Most humans truly are like sheep

Wanting nothing more than peace to keep

To graze, grow fat and raise their young,

Sweet taste of clover on the tongue.

Their lives serene upon Life’s farm,

They sense no threat nor fear no harm.

On verdant meadows, they forage free

With naught to fear, with naught to flee.

They pay their sheepdogs little heed

For there is no threat; there is no need.

To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries,

Roaming watchful round the peripheries.

These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar

With the fetid reek of the carnivore,

Too like the wolf of legends told,

To be amongst their docile fold.

Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they?

They have no use, not in this day.

Lock them away, keep them from sight

There is no need for their fierce might.

But sudden in their midst a beast

Has come to kill, has come to feast

The wolves attack; they give no warning

Upon that calm September morning

They slash and kill with frenzied glee

Their passive helpless enemy

Who had no clue the wolves were there

Far roaming from their Eastern lair.

Then from the carnage, from the rout,

Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!”

Thus is their nature but, too, their plight

To keep the dogs on leashes tight

And live a life of illusive bliss

Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss.

Until he has them by the throat,

They pay no heed, they take no note.

Not until he strikes them at their core

Will they unleash the Dogs of War

Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath

Do they loose the sheepdogs on its path.

And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown before;

We love our sheep, we Dogs of War.

SSGT Russ Vaughn

2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment

101st Airborne Division

Vietnam 65-66

 Published in the January 2005 issue of Leatherneck