The Combat Outpost

The Combat Outpost
Twelve men and a patch of ground and a wall of HESCO bags,
and the mission is to hold the ground against the drags
and pushes of the insurgency that wants the valley road,
and the combat outpost is the fixture and the load.
We named it after someone who was lost before we got there,
and the naming is the thing you do because you need to share
the history of the place with all the costs already paid,
and the combat outpost carries every man who made
it theirs before you, and you make it yours until the next,
and the combat outpost is the most basic kind of text.
The combat outpost, the combat outpost,
twelve men and a wall and the thing that matters most,
the combat outpost, the combat outpost,
holding what the policy says to hold and no one boasts,
because the holding is just the work and the work is just the day,
and the combat outpost is where you live until you go away,
the combat outpost, the combat outpost.
The local elder came to drink tea three times a week,
and the intelligence he gave us was the kind we did not seek
in any official capacity because the protocol was clear,
and the elder told us things and then he would disappear.
When we handed off the outpost to the unit coming in,
we briefed them for six hours on the history and the thin
lines of what worked and what did not and who to trust and more,
the combat outpost, the sum of everything a war.
The combat outpost, the combat outpost,
twelve men and a wall and the thing that matters most,
the combat outpost, the combat outpost,
holding what the policy says to hold and no one boasts,
because the holding is just the work and the work is just the day,
and the combat outpost is where you live until you go away,
the combat outpost, the combat outpost.