Hearts Cry Out Across the Sea

A Poem dedicated to American Mothers during WWII

There is no pain, nor grief that can surpass,

    Of losing your son – especially the last.

We try to be patriotic as an American should be,

    But God knows our hearts cry out across the Sea.

Who killed my boy and what has he done

    To lay down his life at the point of a gun?

The cause is so cruel – oh!  So awful sad.

    Tears our hearts out to lose our lads.

What have we gained?  Mother’s lips repeat.

    Would it not have been better to have suffered defeat?

Many were killed by foreigners on foreign dirt

    But sent from America not trained to be alert.

Again and again our hearts cry out.

    Who killed my boy?  Has America won out?

Thousands have died who wanted to live.

    And mothers have suffered because forced to give.

Oh God; grant that peace can return.

    So mothers and wives and sweethearts will be spared,

Those heart rendering cries – Who killed my boy?

    How did he die?  Where did they lay him?  And how he fared.

Written 1945 by Mrs. Nina S. McCarn

Mother of Harold B. McCarn. 

Killed in action 16 March 1945 in Germany