Military Time ~ by Jay

In the past two months, I have spoken to men who flew battle missions over Berlin, landed at Omaha Beach, served on Iwo Jima, and marched from Strasbourg to the Eastern Front.

He's on the ship again, said one patient's daughter. He keeps saying "Let me shoot them, Mikey. Let me take the gun. They're gonna blow our heads off if we don't". Her brother stood with his back to us so we wouldn't see him cry. He never talked about the war.

Yesterday I stood at a bedside in a nursing home with a patient's son. I thought I was ready, he said, but I guess you never are. I'll be OK. We learn from our fathers how to go on. I asked him what he learned and he smiled. My father was a lieutenant colonel and a football coach. I learned that you suited up and marched onto the field of battle. That's how I ended up in Vietnam. My mother was so worried the whole time I was gone. I've spent the last 40 years trying to make it up to her.

They were soldiers once, and young.

I am grateful to those who serve, and will continue to work for a world in which they don't come home wounded.