poem's from a Vietnam Combat Veteran who now has 100% Service Connected Claim for P.T.S.D.

Dreams

My dreams are real as my wild thoughts run

Of small battles lost, of small battles won.

We faced our truth in a jungle war

With rifle fire and rocket roar,

And no one knew just
how we would feel as we lost our
souls on those Battlefields;

And my youth has gone to return no more,

Except in my dreams of that jungle war

Like a drum

Somewhere in the night my heart beats like a drum

And if I'm really good, I'll see the morning come.

The rockets make the sound of thunder,

The tracers light the sky.

And if I'm really good, maybe I won't die.

And the rain keeps falling like teardrops from the sky

For the young men left to live,

And the young men yet to die.

AN AMERICAN SCENE

We were born in a dream an American scene

And the truth was etched in our minds

Yet to be black or white made no difference those nights for our war had no lines

And as our rifles roared with vicious scores,

We became friends for life, and then one day,
on a patrol so far away

He went back to Harlem; back to his wife

He had died by my side; I held him and cried

And I lost my friend for life.

VENUES

Battle-hardened veterans standing in the rain

Awaiting a lift of choppers with men who have no names

The look on their painted face is gray

As gray as the monsoon sky.

Whoever stands in their way this day

Is surely going to die.

And the rain keeps on falling

Like teardrops from the sky.

AND SO MUCH MORE

Kneeling before my master the question was asked of me,
Was it all you wished it to be?

And like a flood of great waves that crash upon the rocky shore,

My memories pour out of me and Oh! So much more.

The love, the hate, the laughter, the sorrow, the peace.

And a war lay scattered before me like diamonds on a

Black marble floor

And once again the question was asked of me,

Was it all you wished it to be?
And I felt a rumbling from deep inside

And I heard my soul reply:

Oh yes my Lord, and so much more

THE BEAST

Fifteen men leave the bunker line through the barbed wire, down the slope to the open ground ahead of them. Once across, they enter a land of grand jungle; swollen creeks, mud and rocks, leading upward from the jungle floor. To the rolling hills and the mountains, all covered by trees so thick that the daylight does not find its way to the ground on which they walk. It's easy to think that you're the only person to have ever seen this

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