he filled body bags. He went through pockets. Floaters.
After the war, I greeted him with peace signs and flowers for his gun.
Now he lives in the northeastern part of Maine, near the Canadian border. He checks stove burners too many times and likes to be alone.
He's gracious and good hearted, strong and scarred.
His nightmares wake him up 5 times a month, and Agent Orange induced Diabetes has numbed his feet and wants to make him blind. One of the last Uncivil War Unknown Soldiers.
He drenched it in an alcoholic induced self medication for 35 years, then cold turkey'd it.
Hey, Pete, I love you, man. We were in the foxhole together.
Remember we found the empty ice cream container with the bloody butcher knife, on the back porch in Wellesley? Followed the trails. Remember being locked out, the Olman gone for days. No one knows where the hell he is. Waiting for him in the bar parking lot, till the fishing boat woke us up? When Ruth was lost to us?
You joined the army a day after your 18th birthday.
But no man should see what you saw. Or do the things they made you do.
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