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WHEN DARKNESS TOOK COVER
Folder:
JOURNAL #13 through the long night
over a span of many unacknowledged years
they fought
half starved soldiers in their gangly grim
reapers green garb
doing it for all
even the not so good
every last unsurrenderable shard
the scream of 'FIRE'
had to burn every time in the backs of their
closely shaven youth dazed minds
as they each again and again spit out
mass destruction from their once so carefully
cleaned A-K 47's
just where in real society today do these
battered oddly cast mother's sons belong
atop a tomb in the family mortuary perhaps
or stashed away somewhere in a filthy VA hospital
alone
blown apart beyond even partial repair
and going anytime soon no where
war is such a nasty and oh so dehumanizing business
it lurks in the shadows of many a government's
mind
civilization back home in the late 60's rallied
and marched with badges donned that begged
our President's teams to bring our beloved
soldiers home
but ghastly misinterpretations of their vast
courageous cause
won little victory over the plight of the Viet
Cong
lucky are those today who never had to live
with the tragedy of any personal loss
written in our extensive history books
there lists many reasons along side statistics
and strategies
but no true mention of each individuals personal
loss
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder came to be some three
to five years after this bloody, hostile
undeclared war
why even still today over twenty long years later
there are men still fighting a war
yet for what, they know not for
so this is for all you soldiers but especially
those who fell before
we in America haven't forgotten you or your
courageous deeds
nor just what you were sent there for
but surely hell must truly be
the nearest to natural mother of every unwanted
but masterfully fought out war.................
(April 8, 1995)
