CANTON - When 1st Lt. Aaron Seesan died in combat on May 22, 2005, in Iraq, his parents did not know he had written a prescient poem, “Eulogy of the Common Soldier,” as a high-school senior six years earlier.
And read the poem beneath the fold.
EULOGY OF THE COMMON SOLDIER
All mortal beings, which God brought forth, die the same
Man is not exempt
All will inevitably end as the dust from whence we came
It matters not of age
Do not mourn me if I should fall in a foreign land
Think this of my passing
In a far-off field a finer soil mixed with the foreign sand
A dust that is American
A dust that laughed, cried, and loved as an American
On this plot there shall be
A little piece of America, a patch for the free man
Which no oppressor can take
From this soil grows grass shimmering a little greener
Brilliant emerald ramparts
A Breeze whisping White Poppies with scent a little sweeter
Flowers towards heaven
Mourn not my terrible death but celebrate my cause in life
Viewed noble or not
I would have sacrificed and gave all that I had to give
Not to make man good
But only to let the good man live.
— Aaron Seesan
Rest easy, Sir.