"These Soldiers Served"

 These soldiers walked through hell and having passed through the flames lost a part of their soul.

 They watched their friends get shot and maimed and themselves paid a physical and mental toll.

 They prayed for life and they prayed for death as they coped daily with tragedy and pain.

 They saw and heard things that would kill most men and now they attempt to forget in vain.

 Mostly shunned when they came home because of things done by a few others they could only morn.

 They risked the life that God gave them and all they received from their nation and friends were jeers and scorn.

 They walk, talk and even laugh like other men as they pretend the past is forgotten and that they are healed. But deep inside a part of them is as dead as those that returned in plastic bags, forever in the earth concealed. These soldiers served their nation in wartime in those lands of beauty, horror and wrath. They went because they were called and they served because it was the honorable path.

By I. S. Parrish

Back to Top

"The Faces In My Dreams"

 After thirty years I still see faces in my dreams, some who never grew to be old men. Most went off to war with honor and pride, hoping their future they would win. The images float by like specters, I see some laughing while others cry. Each one from a different background, none thought they might be mangled or die. I had hoped to put them all to rest, I had hoped that time would make them fade. But as the years slip by the more I remember, the more of my dreams they do invade.

By I. S. Parrish

Back to Top

You Can't Tell who's a Vet Just By Looking - What is a Vet?

 Some veterans bear visible signs of their service; a missing limb, a jagged scar, a certain look in the eyes. Others may carry the
evidence inside them; a pin holding a bone together, a piece of shrapnel -- or perhaps another sort of inner steel; the soul's alloy forged in the refinery of adversity. Except in parades, however, the men and women who have kept America safe wear no badge or emblem.

 The Vet is the cop on the beat who spent six months in Saudi Arabia sweating two gallons a day making sure the armored personnel carriers didn't run out of fuel.

 The Vet may be the barroom loudmouth, dumber than five wooden planks, whose overgrown frat-boy behavior is outweighed a hundred times in the cosmic scales by four hours of exquisite bravery near the 38th parallel in Korea.

 The Vet is the nurse who fought against futility and went to sleep sobbing every night in Da Nang. The Vet is the former POW who went away one person and came back another - or didn't come back at all.

 The Vet is the Quantico drill instructor who maybe never experienced combat-- but saved countless lives by turning slouchy, no-account rednecks and gang members into Marines by teaching them to watch and protect each other's backs.

 The Vet is the wheelchair riding Legionnaire who pins on his ribbons and medals with a prosthetic hand.

 The Vet is the career quartermaster who watched the ribbons and medals pass him by but made certain every needed bullet found its way to the front line.

 The Vet is one of the three anonymous heroes in the Tomb of the Unknowns, whose presence at the Arlington National Cemetery must forever preserve the memory of all the anonymous heroes whose uncommon valor lies unrecognized with them on the battlefield or in the ocean's sunless deep.

 The Vet is the old guy bagging groceries at the supermarket -- palsied now and aggravatingly slow -- who helped liberate a Nazi death camp and who wishes all day long that his wife was still alive to hold him when the nightmares come.

 The Vet is an ordinary and yet an extraordinary human being -- a person who offered some of his life's most vital years in the service of his country, and who sacrificed his ambitions so others would not have to sacrifice theirs.

Bury Me With Soldiers

 I've played a lot of roles in life; I've met a lot of men. I've done some things I'd like to think I wouldn't do again. And though I'm young, I'm old enough To know some day I'll die, And to think about what lies beyond, Besides whom I would lie.

 Perhaps it doesn't matter much; Still if I had my choice, I'd want a grave 'amongst soldiers when At last death quells my voice.

 I'm sick of the hypocrisy Of lectures of the wise. I'll take the man, with all the flaws, Who goes, though scared, and dies.

 The troops I knew were commonplace They didn't want the war; They fought because their fathers and Their fathers had before.

 They cursed and killed and wept -- God knows They're easy to deride -- But bury me with men like these; They faced the guns and died.

 It's funny when you think of it, The way we got along. We'd come from different worlds To live in one no one belongs.

 I didn't even like them all; I'm sure they'd all agree. Yet I would give my life for them, I hope some did for me.

 So bury me with soldiers, please, Though much maligned they be. Yes, bury me with soldiers, for I miss their company.

 We'll not soon see their likes again; We've had our fill of war. But bury me with men like them Till someone else does more.

--Author Unknown

 ...we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

--President Abraham Lincoln

 Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is struggling with some kind of burden.

Back to Top