Vietnam

I am very thankful to say that despite earlier ranting about being tired of being in school, my education here has been amazing. A perfect example of this is the fact that we've been studying the Vietnam War for about two weeks now (and before I wouldn't have given the matter a second thought) but after reading Dear America: Letters Home from Vietnam edited by Bernard Edelman, I realize that books like this should be required reading. So much more emotion can be felt when you read letters that real flesh and blood men and women wrote to loved ones, versus a textbook paragraph about the whole affair. I have become painfully aware of how many mixed up feelings soldiers went through during their time overseas, and it makes me wonder about our own troops in Iraq. Hopefully this rambling will turn into more than me just be super emotional.

"If you are able,
save for them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

- Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam"