Veterans Day 2006

Veterans Day 2006
I’m an eighteen year old in a fifty seven year old body. In 1968 on some island on some peninsula near Danang, Republic of Vietnam I became permanently 18.
Since that January 30th day of 1968 I’ve never left that island with the village burned to charcoal by napalm. I’ve never left the smell of the “crispy critters” once humans, once babies, once women, once men.
Since that day the sounds and smells of war have stayed with me. The video in my head comes on each night as I try to sleep. There it is again, the rice paddy, the firefight, the dead squad leader, the NVA overrunning us, the grenades, the flash, the screams, the cries, the green and red tracers, the night illumination, and the endless night.
The USMC was going to be my test of man-hood. It turned out to be the test of my will to live. It left me 18 forever like those names on the wall in Washington, D.C. How many times I think they were the lucky ones.
I look back and see nothing but a trail always filled with the booby traps of the jungle. Life always dictated by the past…by the time I was 18.
Tomorrow I will march with veterans for peace in a parade to “celebrate” Veterans Day. We will wear our uniform of the day with symbols of the groups we represent. I represent all those 18 year old Marines who will have their minds permanently impaired in strange places with foreign names.
I’ll represent the walking dead. Too stupid to die. Always there’s someone trying to pull me into the present time telling me things will get better but always the same old shit comes back.
I don’t want your fucking sympathy. I don’t want your fucking tears. I don’t want your fucking love. I don’t want any fucking thing you want to give me. Unless you can give me the death I should rightfully have had in 1968.
Don’t tell me all the things I mean to you. Don’t tell me I’ve done honorable things. Don’t tell me life like this is worth living. Fuck your version of life with never ending war killing the seemingly endless supply of young.
Fuck your version of life with the talk of working for peace and justice but thinking some dumb fucking politico elected to some dumb fucking office will make the difference.
My life is 18. Violence is the answer for me. Always has been. Violence against others. Violence against my soul. There’s nothing left. I’m still 18 and can’t move on.
Yeah let’s march with all the vets from all the wars and make believe we have some kind of fucking honor. The only thing we have is a deluded view of the world. Look at who marches in the parade tomorrow. Every generation’s eighteen year old Marines and soldiers. They have the bodies of the old but they’ve never escaped that past. They wouldn’t be marching if they’d moved on.
There’s no honor, no bravery and no respect for the fools who believed the lies. Fuck your flag and fuck your wars, America. Fuck your stupid fucking dream of greed and privilege. Fuck your democracy. Your legacy will be your fucking body count.
There’s no honor in your fucking uniforms. No fucking honor in your fucking medals. They give you a day to gimp around the streets while the rest of the city, the rest of the world ignores you. Just another day to spend and consume.
Fuck your version of freedom you asked me to spend my life on. Fuck the phony constitution you’ve managed to bastardize and revoke. Take your fucking bullets, your tanks, your planes, your bombs and rifles and blow yourself up.
Masters of war …that’s what Dylan called you. Thieves of my soul and the souls of the young are what you are. You take away the souls and leave us with a body that ages but our minds stay 18.
Mama’s don’t let your daughters marry us. Kids don’t let us take your soul because that’s what they taught us. We’re the killers of life; we take it one way or the other. We suck up valuable air and space while we destroy all that gets in our way.
Veterans Day …just a joke of a day to make fools of us. Don’t you see we’re a bunch of old bodies that have never aged in mind since the day of the first killing we took part in?
The video still runs in my head and I’m still 18. Fuck you, America!!