An Act of Kindness

Along a dense jungle trail

Watching for the enemy, moving slow as a snail

Careful not to make a sound

When I caught a movement on the ground.

Slowly moving ahead one false move and we might be dead,

Creeping along nerves on edge and move, stop, listen to what is ahead.

Within twenty-five feet of the movement seen

The jungle is wet and very green.

When at once we recognized a dreadful moan

Careful, the enemy is tricky this was well known.

Another moan and a slight movement is seen

And there she is a Vietnamese teen.

A pretty girl scared to death

She would have run had she not been injured and out of breath

Crying because of her fear, not her pain

Set a perimeter to assure our security, so our help would not be in vain.

The medic checks the frightened girl as she begins to beg.

As he discovers several cuts and a broken leg.

Our interpreter assures her as the medic sets the limb

Splints the leg and bandages her cuts as the light grows dim.

Through our interpreter she begins to explain

How the VC came into her village looking for grain.

When the village had been robbed and burned

Upon the women they suddenly turned.

She and her sister ran to escape

Knowing that to be caught the best would be rape.

They both knew the countryside well

But in their haste she had tripped and fell.

She sent her younger sister on and told her not to wait

Neither of them knowing but being caught they knew their fate.

We fashioned a litter of sorts

Taking the girl with us for her leg her weight would not support.

Not long until we were at her relatives’ village by a stream.

There we left her but not until she thanked us with a smile that seemed to gleam.

Just a short story of someone we met

But surly one we will never forget.

Sometimes a simple thing can make an impression

Acts of kindness can oft be a loving expression

Just another day that one would say nothing occurred

But who knows, we might have made a difference and that we would have preferred.

©David R. Alexander

February 8, 2003

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