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God bless Rick Rescorla - www.RickRescorla.com

HERO

A little clutch of veterans share a table in a bar,

There's a guy off in the corner coaxing tunes from his guitar.

They watch the Hudson River as it rolls towards the bend

And they talk of Rick Rescorla as a comrade and a friend.

While out across the water, many ocean-miles away

Within a Cornish Tavern by a sandy Cornish Bay,

Another group are gathered, reminiscing as a clan,

And their thoughts are all of Tammy, from the schoolboy to the man.

And every head among them has a picture in its mind

Which time and place and memory have captured and consigned,

Now the pictures weld together until only one remains,

Of a sturdy, selfless hero guiding others from the flames.

It's a picture which unites them in their glory and their grief,

More eloquent than eulogies, confirming their belief

That theirs had been a privilege to saunter at his side

And in the way he'd lived his life had Rick Rescorla died.

The veterans recalled him in the killing fields of war

As a man whose potent presence would inspire and reassure,

Just one among his brothers when the skies began to fall,

Yet one whom they regarded as a father to them all.

And now their eyes will moisten at the mention of his name

And the sources and the substance of the legend he became,

When mayhem drove the best of men to crave their mother's love,

He'd stand and croon an anthem to the gory gods above.

And on that evil morning, so deceptively serene,

Amid another carnage, just as callous and obscene

Again he took the mantle of the sainted and the strong

To save the lives of others with a blessing and a song.

Between the Hudson River and the sandy shores of Hayle,

Though eyes encompass differences of latitude and scale,

All hands are linked together in the testament they bear,

They are but Rick Rescorla’s friends, united by a prayer.

By David Prowse – 2001 - WESTERN MORNING NEWS – Cornwall UK