Ode to a Purple Heart

I met a Vet who had no hand
To shake the one I'd given.
He left them both on Iwo's sand,
But still he made a livin'.

I heard a well-dressed woman say:
"It should be made a crime!
To sell his pencils day by day,
Two pencils for a dime."

Perchance one day, I passed her way
As someone grabbed her purse.
"Stop that thief!" I heard her say,
In words so loud and terse.

The Vet who did not have a hand,
By instinct and bad luck,
Brought down the thief into the sand,
Where in his gut a knife was stuck.

He died on American sand,
Where one commits no crime,
To freely sell throughout the land,
Two pencils for a dime.