One last Memorial Day offering

                              CASUALTY

                                     BY

                         ROBERT PEREZ

 

The sights and sounds I carry

In my mind, my heart and soul,

When our country called her sons

To a far and distant war

 

Neither banners nor flags we carried,

Nor victory was ours at all.

Only bitter thoughts of helplessness

As we watched our comrades fall.

 

I boarded a C-130

With an M-16 on my back

Remembering my mother’s face,

When she said, son please do come back.

 

Returning back, a broken man

With a guilty heart and a bloodied hand,

With broken dreams and so much more

Becoming one of the living casualties of that dirty Asian war.

                              1970