Lance Corporal Nels Hemmingson:
1969
A REMEMBRANCE
We didn't know each other long.
For one short month,
We shared a time of youth,
And learned how to kill together.
USMC Sniper School, 1970;
April, I think it was.
Spring, a good time to be young,
How could we know?
We had so much in common
Two small town boys from Illinois,
You from small Geneseo,
And I just a few miles away.
Both born in 1950,
To working class families,
We took to each other,
Became friends.
We talked of home and family,
About our girls and of our plans.
Then learned our Marine lessons well,
Not really knowing they would be used.
You were blonde, tall and straight.
Of sturdy Midwestern stock,
An All American Boy,
Who had answered your country's call.
Always a smile and a kind word,
I never saw you angry,
Humping the hills or PT,
That smile would be there.
Remember that rattlesnake?
Hiding in the log, we were sitting on!
Never have seen six guys move that fast!
Everyone had a good laugh.
Qualified, we moved on.
Although with different orders,
Both into the same hellish nightmare.
Youth comes to an untimely end.
We said goodbye, never realizing it was final.
A handshake, a hug, a promise to keep in touch,
To get together back home, take the girls out,
Have some fun, when all of this was over.
I, in Country on May 25th
You, May 27th,
I came home in '71,
But you stayed on forever.
I received a letter from home,
My Mother had sent the clipping,
L/Cpl. Nels Ivan Hemmingson, June 17, 1970,
Killed In Action, Quang Nam, South Viet Nam.
I heard it was friendly fire,
Such an ugly, obscene phrase.
But it doesn't really matter,
You were gone still.
Like so many of our age,
You were so quickly taken.
A life not yet fulfilled,
Full of hope and full of promise.
The kind of man this country needs.
God, Country, Corps came first.
Honor and Duty answered.
For love of our Country you sacrificed.
I think of how your life would be now,
The sons and daughters you might have.
How through the years we'd still be friends,
Our families growing close.
Instead your name's upon The Wall.
Panel 9W, Row 60.
Forever etched in stone,
But more, so in our hearts.
Just 21 days in that hell,
Then your life so violently ended.
I pray you didn't suffer.
But I know you are with Him.
Sleep well Marine, my friend, my Brother.
In God's arms you surely rest.
I became an old man that year,
You stayed young forever.