The specters came again in the night.  Why do they come?  Why must they haunt me so?

40 years is almost a lifetime and yet they come so easily in the night.

Many of the specters I recognize, I remember.

Others, I do not remember.

The specters I remember the clearest are those whose lives I took away in a far away place, a place called Vietnam.

Did I kill the others in some impersonal way -artillery fire I directed, air strikes I requested, or grenades I threw?

When they come, they still wear their uniforms of green and tan and with funny thick thong type shoes.  Some wear jungle style hats, others pith helmets, some nothing.

One specter still wears the same leering grin he wore in the death I caused him, finally lying in that death just outside my foxhole.  Others have looks of surprise, of hatred, of fear, of determination.  Death masks?

None look happy.  They don’t speak.  They don’t seem to want to do me harm.  Do they just want to haunt me, to drive me mad?

Is this my punishment for ending their lives?

Fitting?

Maybe.

© Charles Schwiderski 2/20/2008