Several mentioned that my poem, Twelve Rights, about POWs was "sad"

COMMENTS ON "SADNESS" AND WAR

Sadness is the one overwhelming feeling that I brought from Nam.
I bought it there as I patrolled on foot past abandoned railway lines
With blown bridges sagging into placid, meandering streams
And torn up rails lazily settling into the mud of fallow fields
The countryside so full of promise of bountiful harvest
And yet so destitute... and so sad.
The French triangular fort that we used as an LZ to start a patrol,
Zigzag trenches encroached on all sides
until finally they came under the wire and caused
countless casualties on both divides.
Countless not because of the numbers involved
But simply because nobody bothered to count...
so sad, that anyone's life was not even a number.

©Copyright June 6, 2003 by Ray W. Sarlin

Author’s Note: Thank you for saying that Twelve Rights was sad. It makes me feel, well, sad. Sadness sums up the war rather well... perhaps any war