Love Among the Ruins

We came home from Vietnam 46 years ago,
Friends brought together by the war.
That is something of which we have never let go.
Without our companionship our lives 
would be diminished. 

None of us were warriors.
We were school teachers.
None of us wanted to be there.
The idea of shooting at another person
Was as foreign to us as an Asian monsoon.
But we had all been brought up 
To do what we were told.

We were the lucky ones.
Stationed in less dangerous circumstance, 
Just on the outer edge of the conflict.
We held our breath for a year,
Absorbed Vietnam, the country and the war,
And returned to loving arms.
Happy ending.    

But ask anyone who served there.
It didn’t end with coming home.
Ask them how often they think of Vietnam.
They’ll tell you, “Every day.”  
And sadly for some, every night.
46 years later?  That’s right. 

For starters, we shouldn’t have been there.
History has pretty much confirmed
That our country placed us in danger unnecessarily.
When we came home,
It was to resentment and suspicion.
We brought with us memories of those 
who didn’t come home.
And those memories don’t go away; 
they don’t even fade. 

We believed that, at least, our nation
Had learned lessons from its Vietnam failures.
Iraq showed us even that wasn’t true,
Which brought the old scars back to the surface.

The three of us have been back to Vietnam.
Some vets say they could never go back.
They got out alive once; why would they return?
We get that.  But we’re glad we returned.
It was a balm to see the place at peace.
It is the closest we will ever get to the end of the war.