THESE ARE THE MEMORIES THAT WE STILL LIVE WITH  

At sixty eight years of age I'd hoped to one day find real peace
But I have finally decided to come to terms with this situation
To face the reality that under the circumstances it may never be

These are the memories we live with now and that we always will
Those images will haunt our minds until the very day that we die
No matter how many times you say it's all over, it's really not

Past scenes still play over again and again while you try to sleep
At times it causes you to suddenly wake with your heart pounding
It takes a moment or two for you to realize you're home and safe

At times those nightmares are so real you can actually smell them
Smells of the cordite from rounds fired during a defensive actions
You can feel the oppressive heat and merciless humidity once again

You relive the shear terror of mortars & artillery rounds impacting
You feel the ground heave under you as you lie as flat as possible
You pray to God you won't get killed or wounded by the enemy shells

You can hear the shells getting closer and closer to your position
You think that the next round will land right on you and kill you
So you try to get yourself even lower in hopes of not getting hit

When the shelling finally ends you thank God that you survived it
And then later on when told of others who were wounded or killed
You felt guilty since you were glad it hadn't been you who got hit

This is how it's been for forty seven years since returning home
From that war we were blessed to have survived so very long ago
We all are much older now and these are the memories we live with



© Terry Sasek - Alwaysawarrior - all rights reserved.



"FOR THOSE WHO HAVE FOUGHT FOR IT, FREEDOM HAS A FLAVOR THE PROTECTED WILL NEVER KNOW"

I saw this message written on a wall by an unknown soldier who was serving in Vietnam,
He like most of us who had served over there and still deal with our own issues from
that war understand better than most people what the true cost of freedom was and that
too many people just take it for granted because they've always had it and they simply
don't know or care what that cost was to get freedom and to keep it throughout history
and they just don't appreciate what they have now until someday God forbid that they'll
lose their own freedom and rights here in America and if they do it will be due only to
their own lack of understanding or caring just what it took to get and keep the freedom
that they are accustom to and if they do lose their own freedom, it will have been only
because of their own apathy towards life itself here in America.

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