Warriors (a poem)

Oct 29, 2011 8:47:00 PM by Dan Doyle, Vietnam Veteran

In those halcyon days of our youth
When we donned our armor
And went off to war, singing,
We felt ourselves heroes,
Brave enough to vie with gods.
We believed ourselves men
Whose names would live
Long after our noble victories.
But such dreams never last.
Soon the day comes when fear,
Or some crushing defeat,
Or craven death claims a comrade
And we are changed forever.
War, then, is no longer a game,
Or some fancified dream.
Then the warrior cannot doubt
War’s terrible reality—
And it is very hard
To be bravely borne,
For it enfolds death
And makes the going on,
Seem unendurable.


If we survive war’s reality
And come home again
To live among friends,
To wander again the familiar environs,
We no longer feel at home,
For we who left can not return.
Our spirits have been touched.
Though our bodies are still young,
They are scarred and broken.
They have grown old
And those who loved who we had been
May no longer recognize us,
May not understand our nightmares,
Our impatience with the mundane.
We who have gone to wars
Walk with death at our side.
We know what you do not yet see.
But we can teach you much
About life and death,
Comradeship and duty,
If you listen…