A Remberance of War on Veteran’s Day
SOURCE: Poetry of the Viet Nam War
By Pete “the Greek” Agriostathes & Paul Cameron
We Regret to Inform You
Dear parents of the deceased
We regret to inform you of this release
Your son was mortally wounded in combat
His valor in finest tradition and all that
Dear wife and children of this brave man
We regret to inform you of this telegram
Your husband and father killed by sniper fire
He was aiding the wounded until he expired
Dear America, home of our war dead,
We regret to inform you about all this bloodshed
For their gallantry under hostile action are sent
These silver stars and medals from the President
Dear combat comrades of these dear fallen men
We regret to inform you that your memories never end
The sights and sounds of their death keep pounding away
Their names carved on a wall as you kneel down to pray
– Paul Cameron –
1st Inf. Div.
Tired of the Rain and Pain
Through the black night I lie
In a muddy foxhole
As the rain soaks my bones,
Beyond tired.
But I dare not shut my eyes,
For this is Charlie’s weather,
When you can’t hear or see him coming!
POP my twenty-five-foot trip flare goes off!
I spray the silhouettes with the 16
And AK fire cracks in the dark.
I lay down over 100 rounds in a panic
And toss 2 frags between the bamboo!
Then an eerie quiet fell
And I could hear my heart beating in the mud.
That morning we found a lifeless NVA soldier.
The guys put Airborne patches all over him.
I looked in his wallet
And there was a picture of him and his little boy together.
I slid down a tree and sat in the pouring rain
Staring at the picture,
Thinking, I took away the little boy’s dad,
And though it wasn’t supposed to, it hurt!
At that moment a soldier said, Good kill, Greek.
And I said, looking at the picture,
There’s no such thing!
I’m tired of the rain and tired of the pain!
– Pete “the Greek” Agriostathes –
B/1/501
Veteran’s Day memorial that can only be seen today…pretty cool.
Kurt Vonnegut on Veteran’s Day…
“I will come to a time in my backwards trip when November eleventh, accidentally my birthday, was a sacred day called Armistice Day. When I was a boy, and when Dwayne Hoover was a boy, all the people of all the nations which had fought in the First World War were silent during the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of Armistice Day, which was the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
It was during that minute in nineteen hundred and eighteen, that millions upon millions of human beings stopped butchering one another. I have talked to old men who were on battlefields during that minute. They have told me in one way or another that the sudden silence was the Voice of God. So we still have among us some men who can remember when God spoke clearly to mankind.
Armistice Day has become Veterans’ Day. Armistice Day was sacred. Veterans’ Day is not.
So I will throw Veterans’ Day over my shoulder. Armistice Day I will keep. I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.” — Breakfast of Champions
WOW! Thanks John.