Veterans Day / Memorial Day Poem #250

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The day seemed to drag, each breath I inhaled drew in clouds of dust and drear.
The hot sticky sun withered away any moisture I managed to hold within me. My
uniform long and baggy dripped with sweat only briefly, then became heavy with
whitened salt stains. What hell have I delved into? Each clumsy step was heavy
and true, marked by dust and forced by some sort of self sacrificial inner
strength I knew not of. I look around and see the stricken faces of others who
hast felt this primitive awakening. Each one with the look of drained energy,
self realization that they too were really at this decelerate place. I grasped
hold of heavily packed bags with my lifeÂ’s needs. The words spoken by those with
authority stung with pricks and thorns of the true nature of what I have been
injected into, girl, you're a true soldier now, not just one as played on tv,
but a living breathing, and yes one that can honestly die, bloody on a
battlefield you have entered. Crap dude that totally sucks my inner adolescent
screams. Parts of my inner civilian wanted to run away, tell everyone to kiss my
ass, I am going home, didn't do it though, I was a soldier, we don't do that, we
stand and do what ever it takes Hooah. So that's what I did.

Written from the Heart by Denise King
SPC USA. A veteran

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