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Sunday, January 26, 2014

IN THE NAME OF GLORY PTSD Poem 30 years old

Reading thru some emails I came across something that reminded me of a poem I wrote 30 years ago in 1984. I wrote it after listening to Vietnam veterans talking after a memorial dedication.

If you replace a few words, it still applies to the veterans of the wars today and that is the saddest part of all. The words and experiences were belonged to them.  I just arranged what they said.
IN THE NAME OF GLORY
The things I’ve seen and done would boggle your mind.
I’ve seen the death and destruction created by mankind in the living hell that I walked away from but could not leave behind.
It all comes back to haunt me now and makes peace impossible to find.
The ghosts of the past that find me in the night
make me wonder if my life will ever be right.
I have tried to forget what I have done,
and now there is no place left to run.
All this in the name of glory!
There is no end to this horror story.
It still does not make sense even now that I am older,
why, when I was so young they made me a soldier
and why I had to be a part of that war
when I didn’t even know what we were there for.
At eighteen I should have been with my friends having fun
not patrolling through a jungle with a machine gun.
I did my part just the same, just for my country
and stood helplessly watching my friends die all around me.
I felt a surge of hate engulf my soul for people that I did not know
and saw children lose their chance to grow.
All this in the name of glory! There is still no end to this horror story.
There was no glory for guys like me
only bitter memories that will not set me free.
I can never forget the ones who never made it home
some of them dead and others whose fate is still unknown
and the stigma that we lost what was not meant to win
most of us carry that extra burden buried deep within.
All this in the name of glory!
Will there ever be an end to this horror story?

I signed the poem W.T. Manteiv for We Trusted and Vietnam backwards.


They heal when they make peace with the ghost and that has been my mission for all these years.

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