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Healing tears - (D-Day 6th June 2004,)

For Stan, who knows: Jock Gray, Richard, Old Allan, and others told me this over the years but I never felt worthy to tell it for them, not even really now, but time is passing - I hope those who were there understand -I hope I have not betrayed their trust or their memory.

I've been on these beaches before he said
Left my blood and sweat in the sand
Fought and clawed very inch of the way
From the sea right up to the land
And all the time the screeching pounding
Battering smashing deadly hurting noise
Inextricably mixed with the screeching sobbing
Moaning of wounded and dying boys
I only thought of my survival
Never thought of my living
Beyond that very second
That second I was living
Held no thought for any others
Silently praying for just me
Not wanting life to end
By that moaning cold green sea
Somehow I survived my arrival
In that alien foreign land
On that last day of my boyhood
That first day of being a man.
That longest longest day
That I ever was to live
And now I'm back again
With nothing now to give
Since then I've stood erect
Looked every man in the eye
For I lived my vision of hell
And managed not to die
For decades living with the guilt
Of not dying with my friends
But standing in this place
Somehow brings that to an end
I am here again
I have faced my fears
Have finally shed
My healing tears
For the rest
I can be at peace
Starting now
On this beach

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Healing tears - (D-Day 6th June 2004,)