Wars Of A Lifetime

• Marayne Muller, Grade 10
• Poetry
• 2010

Young People Today Struggle with a war, just like those young men enlisting in 1914 wanting to fight.
Young people today are excited by the unknown just like the ANZACS.
We too are highly motivated by our hopes and dreams, peer pressure and sense of adventure.
We don’t want to ‘miss out on the fun’ or look like we’re letting our friends or school down or appear to be the only one not joining in.
We often follow our desires against our parents’ will. This is part of our youthfulness and recklessness.
We stand up and fight for what we believe is right, eyes bright with enterprise.
We have our fears and uncertainties but we don’t often admit them.
We’re not entering battles against countries fighting for our mother country’s freedom with gunfire like the ANZACS, but we have a battlefield of drugs, violence, sex, media manipulation, cyber bullying which we need to fight against for our own sake and that of our fellow men and country.
Young People today aren’t like those ANZACS in 1914 who were a part of, one mission, one voice. We’re standing individually, with separate voices.
War is everywhere and it isn’t just what we perceive as a bloody battle, it is also hardships that can take a life time to resolve.
Once people recognize that a war within self is just as important and as hard as a war against nations that we may begin to become a happy mother country working on the frontline for our youth.