TO SHOOT OR NOT TO SHOOT?


<a href=”https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/the-guilt-that-haunts-me/”>The Guilt that Haunts Me</a>

a war correspondent’s neutral dilemma.

 

         TO SHOOT OR NOT TO SHOOT?

I myself never chose or wanted to  be armed,

My gun was there simply to stop me being harmed.

Should I have shot the sniper as I saw him take aim?

Should I have risked killing him or just let him claim

The life of a man I never knew and know I never will?

Should I still feel so guilty at remaining so totally still?

No firearm of mine was employed there to aid another 

Fighter in that jungle who was neither foe nor brother.

I stood detached and idly watched a man being shot

Without defending him. Well, what right had I got

To interfere in a war that meant almost nought to me,

An independant observer, who even so could see

A human life threatened and which I might yet save

By risking killing another? Was I cowardly or brave?

I have never killed on purpose, but still  feel that guilt

On which all fears of committing such a sin are built.

Whatever I had done I would still have been ashamed

Of letting a man die, rather than be forever named 

An unsung neutral hero who tried to save another life, 

While wondering for ever if the dead man had a wife.

But I might have killed the sniper, oh what sort of choice

Did God really give me, for I never heard His voice?

AWE