For us there were no homecomings, no yellow ribbons, no parades.
58,266 of our heroes moulder in their graves.
We answered our call, we stood our ground and met our foe with steel.
In a land far away, they call Viet Nam.
For this our countrymen spit on us and said we should be 'shamed.
We bite our tongues, got on with life and held our 'nam brothers close
We hid our tears and our scars and dreamed of forgotten ghosts.
And the generations change and time moves on and our critics learn a truth.
It is not us who are shamed but they who had spit
WE answered out call, fulfilled OUR oath and of this our children boast.
Very good.
Welcome home.
Their Days and Mine
Its nearly 40 years since my days in hell now,
yet I remember those distant vivid yesterdays.
In a land of wet green under a hot sun’s rays,
I learned hard lessons, and lived somehow.
I remember those who fell beside me,
some screaming their mortality amid pain.
Others fell so silence, never to speak again,
except upon a long dark wall, their name to see.
I recall homeward bound those who yelled at me,
and the one who spit, and I broke his jaw that day.
I remember the airport policeman, who looked away,
as the whiners demanded that arrested I should be.
I remember being turned down for jobs so often,
and every TV show had a crazed Nam Vet in a rage.
Being a Vet was to hurt, even after this long age,
separated by the politics of left-leaning empty Zen.
I remember the early mornings as we moved upriver,
watching the shorelines with unspoken fear so tense.
I remember I was so alive to the things I could sense,
and how at the smallest sound I’d feel that little shiver.
I tell you, in the bitter end, I didn’t come home, my fate
I never made it back to the real world, it died along the way.
I watched the cruelty of the left come back on me each day,
yet I forged on ahead, because I can’t give into their hate.
I speak not of the things I did there, for they are too strong,
and only those who were there understand them anyway.
I still find anger at what the left will claim or boast to say,
for they have zero invested in America, their way so wrong.
Maybe one day, I’ll find my way home at last,
and just be a man who makes his way to freedom.
Forgotten, is a pain that adds up into a bitter sum,
and old liars strut and preen for their evils past.
I remember more then those fools, who protest now,
I’ve lived through what they do not even understand.
They are children of the liars and cowards, a sad band,
and only interested in creating some newsworthy row.
Great ending.
Thank you for your service.
Hello Johnnie, nice poem . . . Welcome to The Lair . . . and . . . thank you for your Service.