Vietnam

It’s not right, what we know. What we experienced. 

50 years later the emotions come crowding up from inside the chest, pushing up until the eyes moisten quickly. Catching breath. Trying to remember to breathe, to exhale. 

So much is not forgotten. It’ll never go away. A half century passed, and it is remembering yesterday. 

Reminders pop up in unexpected places. Hit quickly. Emotions more than memory grasp hard and don’t let go. 

Then it’s a decision…let it linger, let it grow? Turn away? Change the subject.

So much of life since then went in directions to push all that behind, leave it untouched. Leave it alone. Don’t talk about it. Don’t bring it up. When asked, dismiss it, say as little as possible. Change the subject.

Physical pains from war’s wound persist, never go away. Yet, they are not as debilitating as the instant, unexpected memories that flash out of nowhere.

It was not America’s only war. Not the first. Sadly not the last. So many of us touched by ferocious violence that suddenly explodes and churns every sense into fear, sharp concentration, determination, trying to remember the training that was supposed to provide protection. 

It is not the bullets that are remembered, although the smell of fired gunpowder and burning phosphorous from tracers never go away. It’s the screams, the faces, the horrific wounds, the last gasps, smell of burned flesh and gaping gut wounds, blood gushing onto ground. That is what sticks…the adrenaline-fueled reaction, near panic as it happened…it burns ever bright today. 

The faces of ghosts that walk in the bright light of day. They haunt. 

It is not right what we know. But we do. 

We should never have been experienced it. But we did.

? 2018 Boyd Jentzsch. All Rights Reserved.