Here's Don and Bing. Jeff and Bill Hale.
Victors of Kham Duc and Khe Sanh.
God almighty. Seeing them again.
Flightline, flightgear, flighttime,
Grinning for the camera.
High up among the rotor blades,
Here's Captain Adair and Corporal Flea
On the marston mat, Gunner Poe
and leaning out the window on his .50, B.W. Johnson.
Bent and cracked photos of men so young,
even Poe, fought in Korea too, but still so young.
All the same, so free. So strong.
So quick, day or night.
Invincible.
Doing the impossible and dying trying.

Days marked off a calendar
beyond short timer to gone.
Long flight. Blessed home. Sighs of family relief.
They whisper: he lost weight, look at those eyes,
he smiles but he doesn't, Please tell us all about it…
no please don't.

Forget the past, it's over and done.
Get on with life.
You've earned it.
Forget the past, forget the skills of the past,
the joys of the past,
the sounds and the smells of the past,
forget all the others forgetting those swallowed by the past.

Here's the new civilian, hair, food, plan ahead,
back to school, decisions.
Maybe the airlines, bus driver in the sky.
What about business? Ugly greedies.
Should I stay-in and be another sorry major?
The enemy? Bore