Iraq War Veteran
Beirut, Lebanon, Veterans
They carried P-38 can openers and heat tabs, watches and dog tags, insect repellent, gum, cigarettes, Zippo lighters, salt tablets, compress bandages, ponchos, Kool-Aid, two or three canteens of water, iodine tablets, sterno, LRRP- rations, and C-rations stuffed in socks.
They carried standard fatigues, jungle boots, bush hats, flak jackets and steel pots.
They carried the M-16 assault rifle.
They carried trip flares and Claymore mines, M-60 machine-guns, the M-70 grenade launcher, M-14's, CAR-15's, Stoners, Swedish K's, 66mm Laws, shotguns, .45 caliber pistols, silencers, the sound of bullets, rockets, and choppers, and sometimes the sound of silence.
They carried C-4plastic explosives, an assortment of hand grenades, PRC-25 radios, knives and machetes. Some carried napalm, CBU's and large bombs; some risked their lives to rescue others. Some escaped the fear, but dealt with the death and damage. Some made very hard decisions, and some just tried to survive.
They carried malaria, dysentery, ringworm's and leaches. They carried the land itself as it hardened on their boots. They carried stationery, pencils, and pictures of their loved ones - real and imagined. They carried love for people in the real world and love for one another. And sometimes they disguised that love: "Don't mean nothin'!" They carried memories and, for the most part they carried themselves with poise and a kind of dignity.
Now and then, there were times when panic set in, and people squealed or wanted to, but couldn't; when they twitched and made moaning sounds and covered their heads and said "Dear God" and hugged the earth and fired their weapons blindly and cringed and begged for the noise to stop and went wild and made stupid promises to themselves and God and their parents, hoping not to die. They carried the traditions of the United States military, and memories and images of those who served before them.
They carried grief, terror, longing and their reputations. They carried the soldier's greatest fear: the embarrassment of dishonor. They crawled into tunnels, walked point, and advanced under fire, so as not to die of embarrassment. They were afraid of dying, but too afraid to show it. They carried the emotional baggage of men and women who might die at any moment. They carried the weight of the world.
THEY CARRIED EACH OTHER
©Copyright 1990 by Tim O'Brien
from his book, "The Things They Carried"
First Broadway Books trade paperback edition published 1998
AWAKENING
I'm afraid but cannot run
Inside me beats the Celt and Hun
Inside me Turk and Viking too
I have a duty I must do.
Afraid of each other
These different tribes
But, we're all brothers
Claim the scribes.
I see him clear now, he's a Man
coming closer, gun in hand
He sees me hiding, it's too late
With one swift round, I've sealed his fate
He could not run, despite his fears.
I could not run, my eyes run tears.
I killed my brother on that day.
At war the Huns and Vikings play...
©Copyright 2006 by Edward M. McGuire
LIVING WITH ONESELF
How can I forget the look of surprise on her face as my bullets cut her young body in to pieces?
By the time the shooting stopped all innocence had been lost, as we baptised ourselves with the blood of women and children, all in the name of democracy.
The single order to open fire that has led to the loss of so much innocence on the battlefields of war, now robs me of mine also.
Knowing that an eight year old girl is not the enemy, yet obeying the order to kill her anyway.
My conscience seared in order to bury the feelings of remorse even deeper and to hide my guilt from my memory.
What have I done?
Selling my soul to the demonic master of obedience.
©Copyright July 29, 1995 by Richard J. O'Brien
TO MOTHER
Before the battle's started
I think of them departed
But do not dwell as time will tell
If I'm with them soon parted.
Into the shadow of a shadow I crawl
Body wet from putrid earth
I'm wishing as a child I cannot be seen.
The dreaded beast of battle now raises its ugly head
The wounded scream
Have I been seen
Oh God.......................
Mother where are you!
©Copyright 2005 by Ed Orr
A WARRIOR SOUL
She steps out of a dream, stands dark blue cloak, beside my bed
calls me by a name I do not know
Who are you I ask
This lady with hair of flaming red
A smile but answer not
She holds her hand out instead
It seems we must go, but why I ask
A question you asked, she said, so now I show
The fields of battle, you have often walked
and seen and felt the fear of man
Cursed with a warrior soul you are
curse or perhaps for you a blessing it may be
She took me to see the dead on the fields of Gall
picked clean by the women, battle followers there
Baskets full with treasures these men left behind
treasures mean nothing now, the warrior soul has gone away
She said you have walked though many times
returning each time to learn your way
At the hand of battle many a death I have died
still the battle lust runs deep and clear
Memories of blood, the sword as it rings metal to metal
the Gatling as the chopper comes in low
With the hunter's moon, memories of the soul cry out
within shadows we can hide
Forever lonesome is the warrior soul
Then a lesson I did learn
It is I the warrior soul that must reach out
to touch those who care
My own feelings my thoughts my lonesomeness
is a making of but my own
For if I wait for others
I will but find the darkness of my own pity and despair
I have seen death of battle from Gall to Scotland to Asia
I have listened to men cry out as they died
I have seen bodies ripped by sword and gun
And held a friend as his blood bled to the ground
On every field of battle there is beauty
If one but opens their eye's to see
At Gall the wild yellow rose
a promise of life continuing and love and hope
Scotland, a missing arm and eye, I stopped to smell the honeysuckle
I am lucky many will never come this way again
Viet Nam the warrior stops to help a child
beauty is found in the warrior's heart and the smile of the child
This life I think has passed the warrior stage
but was I not meant to die along the way
Some lessons I must have learned
to find gray hair now upon my head
Look at your body, the cloaked lady said
see the marks of battle long past
The place the skin is white and the hair won't grow
It's just a reminder of the African desert campaign
The red mole shaped like a saber wound
just something that came from Scotland long past
You are learning to be humble (not the warrior's lot)
So now remember Russia and the party of the Czar
An officer, blue and red uniform all pressed and proper
To a Lady I did brag, I would kill then all
And in short order be home to her before next year's fall
A brag, then a bullet in my knee I did receive
I lay there in the Russian winter and froze to death
I hope the Lady shed a tear
The Alps I have a small home and family
I walk home after the battle lost, my only treasure my family waiting there
Gone is my home, gone as is my family; to where I do not know
I sit on the rocks of my yard and cry
The warrior soul learns many things
Battle being only one, also how to shed many a tear
I have seen the young in battle fall and return too soon
to but another battle they come, no lessons have they learned
Her red hair flashes as she talks of the dark rain that falls on the field of battle
the rain is but the tears of the warrior whose lesson has been lost
The hunter's moon is in the sky my blood it does make run wild
The streets of Berlin I find myself; it's 1941
The Lady I meet is of the moment a single night but for to spend
The lure of the moon the lust of the night does a passion make to bloom
A quick kind of love does blossom, for tomorrow I am battle bound
An officer of the SS and to Africa I am being sent
A kiss, a wave and off I go, with a promise
thought's of my wife and child, it is to them I must return
I sit upon the sandy hill, to look upon death below
I walk down to help the poor souls there
Before me do I lay, dead not dying
the shell exploded and took us all, no more to live today
Hold to love with all you can
for it may soon be taken away
Grasp and hold every second for
what moment in time do we have but now
Yesterday is gone with tomorrow yet to come
Today could be the last day we are allowed to stay
Many times have come and gone, my warriors memories are near
The body that I dwell in now, not a sword battle has it seen
But the hands love the feel of the hilt, the smell of powder
these make the heart a battle rhythm beat
The warrior soul is challenged now with new wondrous ways
Come now my warrior soul, the new challenge me must meet
I sit and think of many things, many questions do arise
Many times I have returned with old friends soon at my side
Must we all come to learn over and over again
or is it to help a brother or sister warrior soul in need
These questions I cannot answer only God knows for sure
Could it be we need to drop the warrior from our name and just be souls all one and the same
©Copyright June 2007 by James H. Smith
Author's Note: This is the first poem I wrote after returning home from Vietnam. I think it was on an old yellow tablet about ten pages long. Over the years whenever I stumbled upon it, I've rewritten, cleaned it up, and thinned it down. I'm sure I still need to work on it more and will at some later date. Right now I can no longer see what I'm reading when I read it. This is the latest rewrite and I thought I would share. This is based somewhat around a dream. I have no idea what or where the fields of Gall are. Warning! For me it's a long poem.
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