Another Veterans’ Day

I have seen their laughing faces,

With crinkled, smiling eyes

Changed by war to somber masks

Where now only sorrow lies.

What happened to the gung ho kids

Who left home, courage high?

Well, some came back, if alive,

With eyes that just want to cry.

How is it that some could survive

A war’s most vicious wrath,

And, when at last returning home,

Find a serene and peaceful path

To follow for the rest of their days

While other comrades-in-arms

Seem to have experienced

Deep and incurable harm?

They all saw gut-wrenching sights,

Felt the blood ooze, sticky and warm,

Fought through rice paddies and jungles

And across sand dunes and farms.

They reacted alike with visceral pain

To the searing loss of friends,

They lived as one the perilous nights

And days that never seemed to end.

They flew the vengeful, fast-moving, jets 

And the chopper medevacs;

They fired off rockets, dropped napalm

Or were tireless airborne FACS.

They manned the door guns and fired

the flares that ripped the dark asunder,

They soared above the smoking earth

as it throbbed to their Rolling Thunder.

They huddled in the darkened rooms,

Glued to their radar scopes,

Knowing the bright dots they guided

Were some besieged grunts’ final hope.

They patrolled the base perimeters

Along with their brave canines,

They drove the trucks, cooked the

meals, and detonated mines.

They bandaged wounds and operated

to save thousands of lives;

They wept for the ones who didn’t make it

And cared for the ones who'd survive.

They all were numbed by constant death,

The pain, the weariness, the terror.

Yet some somehow found inner peace,

While other lives lost their fervor.

It wasn’t a simple matter of guts,

For having courage does not spare

Anyone the dreams and flashbacks

That can, unbidden, suddenly flare.

It’s something that lies deep within,

The essence of who we are,

That allows some souls to heal themselves

While others remain deeply scarred.

It’s something that I contemplate

As we observe another Veterans’ Day;

And I wish for us all eternal peace

When we come to the end of our ways.

©10/30/2003 Thurman P. Woodfork