Ray W. Sarlin

A HERO WITH NO NAME

Was there ever meaning truer
Than that one from Vietnam,
From a young man I remember
Who lay dying in Binh Thuan.
Old eyes staring far away,
Past dead and dying friends,
Dying alone amongst a crowd,
While his body slowly mends.

Drifting far away from them,
Into a vast and dark unknown
Nothing to tell waiting parents
Or friends and love at home,
Purple shade dropped o’er his eyes
As youth slowly slipped away
Courage and duty didn’t desert him
But his future died that day.

He went to Nam a young man, standing tall to play the game
A year’s hard yards for Uncle Sam, came home his place to claim.

“It was like.” he started saying
Voice fraught with pain and grief,
But there were none who listened
To his tangled feelings or beliefs.
Mother cooked her apple pies
In pretense he’d never left
While dad avoided questioning
The ghosts he tried to heft.

Friends still speaking to him
Closed their ears to words he’d say
His girlfriend married another man
Twelve months long enough to stray.
Hollow silence echoing in his mind
It was time to simply drift away,
Out into the dark, alone again
With no reason left to stay.

He went to Nam a young man, standing tall to play the game
A year’s hard yards for Uncle Sam, but home was not the same.

Married once or twice or more
Still alone amongst the crowd
Future becoming present, then past
Hiding that he’d once been proud
Until a time the dam was breached,
Hallowed ground stained red again
Memories flooding back he cried,
“I was once a better man.”

He went to Nam a young man, standing tall to play the game
A year’s hard yards for Uncle Sam, he’s a hero with no name.