Fuits, Burl
Burl Fruits - WWII
(Newspaper Clipping - probably Crawfordsville Journal Review)
To My Friends - As I left Saturday, Sept 25 for the US Navy, it was impossible for me to get around and see all of you. I take this means to say goodbye, as I regret leaving everyone. I will try and express my feeling in a little poem I wrote several years ago.
In the last World War
I was but a lad,
And at the station saw
The heart-torn parents
Give up their pride and joy
To me it was a sad picture
With me, it is still;
I would rather not be a soldier
Who has to shoot and kill.
The engineer was signaled,
The cars went rolling past;
For several mothers in that crowd
It was forever the last caress
The platform of the rear coach was crowded
With hand-waving men,
And I watched them vanish from my sight
As they rounded the railroad bend.
If the war lords could have seen their sadness
Rather than fire and fear;
All nations would live as brothers
Throughout the eternal years.
Burl E. Fruits