A Blog of Flashbacks Are We Really Doing This Again?
March 2026
World War II ended in May 1945 in Europe and in Japan in September 1945. Since then, the US has not been in a declared war, but in many conflicts, or undeclared wars. Korea (with still no truce), Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iraq again. I have left out the shorter ones of Panama, Bosnia, and other places. Are we really doing this again?
Some war movies come to mind. The Hurt Locker. Zero Dark Thirty. The Deer Hunter. Taking Chance. The Imitation Game. Platoon. Forbidden Games (French). We Were Soldiers. Schindler’s List. Das Boot (German). Ran (Japanese). Saving Private Ryan. The Last of the Mohicans. The Last of the Mohicans—the last of a tribe of people. What if you were the last of your entire family and heritage? What if the next war is the last of your family, of all your relatives?
There are a few books that struck me deeply. The 900 Days by Harrison Salisbury, about the isolation of Leningrad for 900 days during World War II’s German blockade when people made bread from sawdust and linseed oil or died in the street, but no one had the strength to move them. The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larson, about the German blitz of London in 1940-1941. The poetry of Anna Akhmatova, especially her Requiem. She makes it possible to imagine being in that line of waiting people.
In the terrible years of the Yezhov terror I spent seventeen months waiting in line outside the prison in Leningrad. One day somebody in the crowd identified me. Standing behind me was a woman, with lips blue from the cold, who had, of course, never heard me called by name before. Now she started out of the torpor common to us all and asked me in a whisper (everyone whispered there):
"Can you describe this?"
And I said: "I can."
Then something like a smile passed fleetingly over what had once been her face.
Now I read of the current war in Ukraine, The Language of War, by Oleksandr Mykhed. The cover gives me chills. I’ve never received a letter like this.
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The Language of War, by Oleksandr Mykhed |
I listened to World War II news as a very young child. I watched the news of Korea at movie theaters. I watched Vietnam and all subsequent conflicts on television. I’ve heard gunshots in my neighborhood. But I’ve never heard or seen a bomb explode. I’ve never had to run to a shelter. I remain aware how very fortunate I am.
I offer a few of my published poems about war. Too many people do not like poetry because they don’t know how to read it. My recommendation: read it out loud as if you’re reading a story to someone.
Homage
Abigail B. Calkin
The stories and ghosts of all soldiers and civilians from both sides must be all over that place.
(Russell Cahill, 2017)
I stand on Omaha Beach—
wind bites me
surf pounds my wet shoes.
I smell waves of salt and blood,
see men hit the ocean,
rifles held high.
They run through water to reach the day’s low tide as
boots mark sand
fear marks hearts
Tide
brings sand in takes sand out
brings sand in takes sand out
day after day, millennium after millennium.
My fingers leave their traces as I
cup sand. Is this the same sand
soldiers crossed
—that goes out to sea and then returns
millennium after millennium? Did Betty’s father
run across this sand? Adrenalin surging,
heart pounding, eyes focused.
Did First Lt. Cleveland Pinnix
lead his men across this beach?
Is this the same sand of 1944?
Is this the same sand of the beginning?
This sand
memorial to the men who did not make it home,
memorial to those who did. Still today, tide and sand
come in and go out
come in and go out…
I walk into the water…
return my handful of history to its home.
Published in Tidal Echoes, 2018
The last poems here are from my book, The Soul of My Soldier, 2015, published by Familius. I wish that book did not come to mind now.
Innocence Shattered
In memory of Jim Carlson
Out of uniform
he sat on the edge of his childhood.
Wept.
Shook
wept more.
Where is the boy who stood in the sand
in awe of the desert, ocean,
vastness of space?
He sits on the edge of his bed
mourning his friend.
Jim lay wounded—
he asked for Robbie.
The Army did what they could
to get his hometown buddy there, but
as Robbie walked to the helicopter word came
Jim had died.
Once home six months later,
he walked to visit the grieving mother.
Did he die for a reason, she asked.
He could not answer because there is
no reason in randomness.
He crept home, his soul too
weighted to walk, sat in the bathroom
three days sobbing.
What was its purpose? Why did he die?
Why do I live? His family,
not knowing what to do,
remained downstairs,
waited for him to get off the edge of his precipice,
waited for the boy they had sent to war to come home.
But the tears never dried. They just stopped
running down his cheeks.
31
In memory of the 31 lost in the helicopter crashes of August 2011
31 lost
31 doors
Receive that dreaded knock,
Unwanted visit
Leave families with shattered hearts
31 pairs of boots lined up with rifles and dog tags and helmets
Comrades grieved for and remembered
31 funerals
Names on newly made grave markers
31 empty places at the table
31 souls who gave all, whose deaths leave a void.
Take 31 days and months
—Pause
Reflect
on—
Sacrifices of 31 lives gone forever.
Comforting the Remnants of My Soldier
The rats of war
chewed pieces out of you.
I hold you at night
covering the holes with my skin.
My last comment today: The pain of war does not end the moment the last shot is fired.
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