I wish I could yell, and someone would come,
But they don’t
I call in air support but the pilots are all stricken too
The infantry has gone into the bunkers
MIA in their own wars like yours …
Forty years after ...
Under a hundred starry nights … stained with blood
Comrades lost, in the winds of Battles gone
In a war over there, in the napalmed jungles
Where Agent Orange still stains the ground
A million screams now silent,
Except those in your mind, which will echo
For all time
We are alone
And we fight the war, together, after you’ve come home
Medic! Medic!
You were wounded in the Nam
Spiritually, wounded, for a country that has forgotten what you’ve done
And what was done to you
Medic! Medic!
Nobody to help us, just you and me
You are wounded, and I your son, a warrior too,
Help you carry on
Though I have never seen the jungles
I am there with you
Fighting a war
In jungles of PTSD, anger, fits of rage
Flashback ...
Incoming, again!
You duck into your psyche until choppers pass
Ones you hear, though we are standing here in suburbia
Guns firing, shrapnel flying,
Once again ... it happens often
We go on, me carrying you, and you wounded
Through the battle under the blood stained heavens
Fighting the war together, the one they forgot
The war you still fight, I fight with you
Medic! Medic!
© 2007 by Jeremy Hogan, photojournalist, son of Jerry Hogan, a Vietnam veteran with longtime PTSD. The photo is of Jerry Hogan. Used with permission.
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Editor's Note: April is National Poetry Month. We're initiating it with this poem, written by a son about his Vietnam veteran dad's experience with PTSD.
