For God’s sake, don’t judge her as she is now,
she was once a most elegant beauty.
All the young men would salute in awe
as serving her country was her duty.

She never had a home or family of her own
there just never seemed to be the time.
When the day came she hung up her uniform
she thought she was well past her prime.

She knew life like most women never know,
at the front line battlefields of war,
where bombs were blasting, smoke and terror,
she was right up there at the fore.

She would stay for hours through the night
to light a cigarette or hold a trembling hand.
Way past when her nursing duties were over,
in some strange, foreign, bombed out land.

She new the screams of those limbless or blind,
she wrote letters to their dearest kin.
Held many like frightened babies in the night
until the early morning sun crept back in.

For all the wives that she pretended to be,
talking soothing words for hours on end
just to make them hang on, have the will,
so their poor broken bodies could mend.

Now she ends her days in a nursing home,
just a shrivelled little lady with silver hair.
One of our own military, shining angels,
reliving her memories in a big armchair.