Richard D. Preston

FRIEND

It was a dark and dismal night
In the land of the unforgiving
Mortars sounds and exploded rounds
Sucked the life out of the living

Nowhere to run, nowhere to go
We were dug into the hills of clay
There was a hundred hours of uncertainty
Before we would see the light of day

We scrambled blindly to second-guess
Where the next son of a bitch would land
Round after round they kept coming down
The air was filled with steel and sand

A flash of light I saw the silhouettes
Of desperate men trying to survive,
The hell that screamed down upon us
From that ebony Vietnam sky

Heroes were few on that hellish night
But there was one friend who covered my back
We found a hole and stumbled in
I heard the round hit but felt no flack

The night fell silent, still as death
I pushed up and felt his weight
The hero lay motionless in the aftermath
I chalked his life up to war and fate

In the morning light I pulled his tags
In his pocket was a rice paper page
Upon this page were words written in red
Still intact after the nights bloody rage

I unfolded the text and read the words
And my tears seemed to fall without end
It read “Greater love hath no man than this,
That a man lay down his life for his friends”