A THAILAND VETERAN'S PRAYER
I never fired a shot. I did not dodge hot lead.
The action never got intense. I never ducked my head.
The fear we fought at times, be it night or day,
was constant for our brothers a country and a half away.
I stared across the river, Laos on the other side.
Pathet Lao troops patrolling across that wet divide.
I got to turn 180; and steer my butt back to base.
Wondering how it felt to stare an enemy in the face.
Those who bunked in those barracks before me, did all that they could do
To ensure the planes they sent could do their best to cover you.
I came to this station later, from seventy-four to seventy-five,
the mission mostly over for the dead and for those alive.
Not over for seventeen brave SPs and their helo's crew of four;
the unknown fate that awaited them as they set out on their chore.
Part of a few hundred young men who answered their countries call
and a chopper ride toward the other side that ended with their names on the wall.
Seems Cambodia had stolen a ship and 40 old merchant marines.
President Ford traded their lives for 40 young men wearing green.
Some SPs I knew left Udorn to support this rescue, with planning so slack
I never saw them again, and I pray from my heart that they somehow made it back.
You see, now, more than twenty years later clear truth like a bell that rang.
The merchant marines were free men before the assault on the Island of Koh Tang.
I believe this is fact, I hope that the source of this previously unknown view
can be trusted, though it came from the CBS Evening News.
I rotated back to the world in the spring of seventy-five;
I was greeted by rage and indifference by those who never risked their lives.
I certainly was no kind of hero, but felt an aching in my heart
for those forty guys, and the thousands more, whose lives had just got a start.