In the Valley

We are always in the Valley. It will not let us go

No matter how we try to get away

You think you understand us, but you can never know

The Hell we have to live with every day

It started…nothing special. Another battle line

Another place to try and make a stand

A fight for independence, keeping what was yours and mine

We swore that we would not give up this land

Rumors started building. Was the battle going wrong?

The fear of breakdown slowly crawling in

With dead and dying ‘round us, help was taking far too long

Would this finally be the fight we couldn’t win?

We held the line regardless. Our orders were to stay

So our tired reserves and Angels could regroup

The brigade shrank to a company by noon the second day

Then the company was whittled to a troop

The officers were gone by then, killed or mad or fled

We tried to fight on, leaderless, alone

The living taking shelter mid the bodies of the dead

As our hearts within us hardened into stone

The message we could not believe, there would be no relief

Told to lay down arms and fight no more

We thought that it was over, but found that hope was brief

As a wall of flame rolled up the valley floor

Then five full days we waited, as the generals parlayed

Waited for the aid that never came

Our comrades slowly dying, while the dirty deals were made

Deals that changed our courage into shame

Waited with the wounded, saw the suffering on each face

Heard their pleas for us to help them go

I did not count how many souls we finally granted grace

It’s a number that I never want to know

There was no joy when shuttles finally landed on the plain

We knew that we would never never leave

Our bodies were recovered but our hearts and souls remain

Condemned through all eternity to grieve

We are always in the Valley. It will not let us go

Try as we might, we cannot find the key

We are always in the Valley and the only hope we know

Is that one-day Death will come and set us free