Joseph Milanese
US Army
In the late 1960's I worked at a local theatre in Fayetteville, North Carolina and befriended a young trooper from Fort Bragg named Michael Bagley. We became the best of friends, double dating and sipping Boone's Farm Strawberry wine and trying not to let my Mom catch us. My family 'adopted' Mike and he spent his weekends off post with us. Then he went off to the highlands of central Viet Nam where he served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade.
My father retired from the Army in 1969 having served in Korea and Vietnam. I was a young man that believed in family, country and honor and I followed my Dad and Michael joining the Army at the tender age of 17 as I graduated from High School in 1970. I even volunteered for 'the Nam,' but Uncle Sam sent me to Germany instead. Mike and I moved our separate ways and I did not see him again for 32 years until last week when his wife Kathy and he came to my wedding to Jennifer.
I had forgotten the poem. I was looking for a poem I wrote that senior year about rings for the wedding. Instead I found the one I wrote as an English assignment about Mike and me. I'm not sure how I have managed to keep it for so long. The paper is yellow and a water stain blurs one of the words. I was finally able to share it with Mike and now I share it with you….Freedom's Flame
© 1970
As I sit and laze in the noon sun,
I'm thinking of a friend in Vietnam.
And how he longs for his job to be done,
But those Viet Cong don't give a damn.
And I think of how some day real soon,
I might be enrolled in Saigon U.
And that he and I may be near doom,
That freedom may come even for just a few.
Freedom's price is high,
And he and I are full of fear.
But if the price is to die,
We'd rather pay, than to enslavers go our dear.
We'll fight onward, anywhere, night or day,
A course which is not in vain.
So our children and your children,
Forever and forever can play,
Under that lofty freedom's flame
Joseph Lee Milanese
Joseph at Work
Joseph Departed this life on 26 March 2005 as the result of an auto accident.
Joseph also role-played as a Klingon warrior: Warriors would sometimes follow the death howl with a recitation of a Klingon mourning chant: neH taH Kronos. Hegh bat'lhqu Hoch nej maH, meH taH Kronos, yay je bat'ih manob Hegh. Translated: "Only Kronos endures. All we can hope for is a glorious death. Only Kronos endures. In death there is victory and honor."
A Rose Never Given
This red rose
I do lay down
upon your grave in my mind
There was no time...
I never meant to be unkind
I could not know
that so soon you would go
I should have given
roses then...
instead of now...
just take this one instead
Good-bye...Joseph...my friend...
Take this rose now and hold it
for when we meet again...
somewhere on another chart...
until then I keep you in my heart...
Faye 3/26/05
In Memory of Joseph Milanese
In Peace
Comes the word with sorrow imbued
Soft and dark – so somberly hued
It’s hard to remember at such times
That a friend has gone to sunnier climes.
“Accept the loss; begin to rejoice,’
Gently uttered in an angel’s voice.
“I’ve come to take him home with me;
Forevermore his soul will be free.”
Nevertheless, such a void is left
That we cannot help but feel bereft.
Later, later, as time moves on
We may accept that our friend is gone.
But for the present, the heart is torn
And we find ourselves forlorn
And yet - it's true, we should not mourn
For, in that instant, a new angel was born.
© 3/26/2005 Thurman P. Woodfork
SPECIAL FRIENDS
We have no claim upon this life we lease,
With fleeting breath we breathe ere it doth cease,
Being what we can while passes our short span,
Life ending where it first for us began.
Good souls we find if we have time to meet,
For oft this life for some of us is fleet,
For others longer and oft not quite deserved,
Though none have lives immortally preserved
Yet we do live to breathe, to feel and do,
And given thought decipher what we view,
And given emotions, we cry and love and hope,
Try to survive and with all the dangers cope.
Despite all this we do make special friends,
And when they die a magic kinship ends
© 29 March 05 Colin F Jones
~SAFE HAVEN'S HEROES~
Once again, we bond in sorrow;
another friend is lost.
For him, there'll be no new tomorrow
and we are left
to pay the cost.
Once again, a friend has left,
to find his way among the stars
and we are left behind to nurse
our wounds, that heal as scars.
Joseph, Jorf
I wonder why
you had to go,
you had to die
I'll look up and I will see
the star you are
now that you're free.
Dear friend, I hope
your path is clear
You were, to us,
so very dear.
© Christina 3-05
In Memory of Joseph.
