I heard your story on the radio
while driving to work
on a beautiful spring morning
blue crisp skies hearkening the day

They told me about you,
adopted at age 5
by a childless family
who you lost years ago

How you had no wife, no children
no one close to take the flag that draped your coffin
folded so reverently by your fellow soldiers
and handed to your adopted cousin

She told us about you
how you dedicated your life to serving your country
how you felt that you were making a difference
in a foreign desert land, because someone needed to

She told us how she spoke to you
told you that you were family to her
and that you were loved, that you had someone
to worry, and wonder, and weep for you

And I was caught by this story
of a man I would have never known
who sacrificed himself for what he believed in
who answered duty’s call, wherever it took him

I will remember you, Major Alan Greg Rogers
a stranger to me, buried at Arlington
one of many who have died for our country
and how I wept in sorrow for someone I never knew.