Remembering Vietnam
Vietnam
Was my jolly green place
Where I met
War’s hot and mean face…
Not from deadly bullets,
Zinging close by my head,
But from hospital visits
To those wounded instead.
Not from dead comrades
Dying there in my arms
But from friends struggling
With mental war harms.
Not from living long,
Ferocious fire-fights,
But from the living terror
Of others’ hind sights.
Not from bad memories,
Still burdening my mind,
But the fits given to some -
Home, but still left behind.
Jim Hale
Veterans Day, 2009
