Alwaysawarrior

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WAITING FOR DEATH TO TAKE YOU OUT

There were days when I felt like my number was about to be called
That one day a bullet or fragments would get to me ending my life
At twenty years old this was not what I had wanted to think about

You think how many times can you be so damn lucky and not be hit
It was always there that thought just when will your luck run out
At times it seemed hopeless that you could make it through a year

There were times when nothing happen for days on end over there
Just at that moment you'd breathed a sigh of relief they hit you
Mortars and artillery striking with a vengeance everywhere at once

The fear felt at that moment is impossible to describe to others
You would have to experience it first hand to know that feeling
No matter how bad I disliked someone I'd never wish that on them

It's the most terrifying event you could go through in your life
No matter how brave you may think you are you are not right then
Seeing the explosions working their way towards you is pure hell

There is nowhere to run without being killed by flying shrapnel
Your only hope is to get as low as possible and pray like hell
The terror you feel while waiting to die is beyond description

© Terry Sasek - Alwaysawarrior - all rights reserved.

A most terrifying ordeal for any human being to ever have to go
through in their lifetime, but when you are just a young warrior
trying to defend freedom in war you will try very hard to give
the impression on the outside to others around you that you are
very brave and that you are unfazed by that sudden barrage of
mortar shells or artillery shells impacting all around you. But
then too at that exact moment deep inside you are ready to start
screaming out loud and to go completely insane as you watch the
sight of those terrifying explosions getting closer and closer
to you and your fellow warriors. You must try to focus hard on
finding the enemy so that you can call in their location to get
our return fire directed onto them and eliminate the immediate
threat to you and your fellow warriors and to your base. Yet at
the same time you are keenly aware that at any second you could
be vaporized or ripped apart by one of the enemy's shells that
are raining down on all of you. I can't even begin to describe
to anyone just how terrifying it is to go through such a thing
and during my year down in the remote delta region of Vietnam
we all had faced and we had survived more attacks than any of
us care to remember or ever have thought that we could survive
or live to talk about it to anyone else years later when we all
would become old men.

This is a repost of the poem I had written back in the early
morning hours of January 10, 2007 after I was suddenly awaked
by the most terrifying nightmare that I had experienced up to
that point in my life since having returned back home after I
served in and survived my year long tour in the Vietnam war as
a 21 year old kid back in November of 1969.

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WAITING FOR DEATH TO TAKE YOU OUT