I Still Miss Someone
My poor heart still hanging heavy as a stone
For I still can see his brown eyes
Still hear his laugh, just before he dies
His last joke wafting in fetid air
Still sweet-and-sour, over there ... somewhere
Vibrantly wafting round battle’s rim...
I still think of him.
I still miss someone
He’s my brother when cold wild winds come
Feeling so strangely all alone
Left back in the Nam to atone
When that bullet with his name on it clashing
With the horror of war came gnashing
Death never gives a chance to say goodbyes
I still picture emptyness in those brown eyes.
Ben Herrera was killed by a sniper 8/10/68
I Still Miss Someone
Who patrolled Nam’s free-fire zone
Walked with us o’er fevered lands
With gore bedewed hands
Mid Nam’s abstract allegories
Waging war’s dance of the furies
Tramping verdant jungles dark and dim
Withering anguished souls deep within.
Manifesting when hazy lights grow low
When spirits of the dead bestow
Haunting thoughts of long-ago firefight
My heart's a stone in my throat tight
Hearing again the sounds, the smells
Reminiscent of a thousand weary hells
My speeding bleeding mind going a mile-a-minute
Reliving war and all that’s in it.
Born to lead this wild dance of fate
Sent swift of foot to avenge mortal hate
To in sweet-and-sour wood cast solemn chances
Jerking whenever boots march to dismal dances
To pluck the last string on a tuneless lyre
Beating in the heart a brand of fire...
I wonder if he’s sorrowed for all we’ve done
Trod down in the gauntlet of fate run?
I never got over those brown eyes
The shock and awe of his last surprise
Staring deep into a soul in profound despair
I see them everywhere
Haunting me when lights go low
Forever with me, my warrior bro...
Though The Nam still owns this soul
Still in my heart a blackened hole.
Melvin Sherrell was KIA December 13th 1966,
backing up Norman "Butch" Petit in the lower
level of a tunnel System in Tay Ninh West.
O I Still Miss Someone
Still Praying egregious guilt to condone
Searching leaves me adrift and alone
But he’s always there
In raging torments or fair
Following me with deepest care
I’ll never got over those brown eyes
That will never see another sunrise.
I Still Miss Someone
Left up on the demilitarized zone
Where we met the enemy together
Fought the oppressor, the right to relieve
So gung-ho ... so naive
With me forever
Fighting in sweltering monsoon weather
Now he's gone ... chasing demon cong.
O I Still Miss Someone
When flies about my head drone
I worry for your sweet mother, brother
Who sorely misses her source of life
Her beloved son
Her favored one.
Does she cry as colored leaves are falling
Still clutching soft hopes pining
Her great heart within her heaving?
Mothers still miss their someone
Remember him around home’s hearthstone
Never forgotten ... always there
Clothed in deepest despair
Never doubting goodness bred-in-the-bone
Strengthof character his backbone
Recalling sweet-or-sour memories which linger
Giving death the proverbial finger
Remembering his great-big smile
Helped me walk that extra mile.
Mothers with all the heart of them miss someone
Still sing softly at his headstone
Missing him most in night's dreamin'
Spring when all the world’s a growin'
Winter times with winds coldly blowin'
Summertime with hot sun shinin'
All the world around them dyin'
Mothers still haunted by war’s vile lies
Cry remembering their son’s brown eyes
In the fall most of all.
O I grieve so for his girlfriend
Whose torment for a lost beloved will never end
She’ll miss those arms in wonder that held her
When all the love was there
There’s no-one else for her somewhere
For she can’t help but think with love of you
Patrolling Nam’s damp dank and dew
How can she ever get over those brown eyes
Those eyes wherein all her love lies...?
The heedless world faces future's tempest-tossed
Never really comprehending their great loss
The world doesn’t know to miss their someone
Who the very son outshone
That fair Prince meant the noble kingdom to inherit
So good ... so bright
A valiant promise of life forfeit
Wiping undone all good he would do obliterate
His bright future ... his future throne
Marks only for his lonely tombstone.
I still miss someone...
Who took a poor newby under his wing
In Nam’s early morning spring
When I came in-country an unripe twink
A FNG who’d not learned as a soldier to think
He taught me how to fight ... to live
This hell-hole to survive
Horror’s millstone round my neck to keep
Fears esoteric thoughts bury way down deep
Keep puerile senses alert in every way
Till some better day
Survive until the memory of war's far away.
Then came the fated day
When heated winds howled in fevered fray
When fierce war gods snatched my brother away
Left me crying, lying in the dust
Raging till I thought I would bust...
Blindly wanting vengeance his debt to pay
Kindled embers in this combat passion play.
I feel him with me every day... thru every night I pray.
So as festive New Years come and go
All I have, I to my brothers bestow
For they are the reason I still have a season
Saving my life ... my Nam brother, and God’s holy son
That blessed one
To share with family through Christmas joy
Remembering the wet-behind-the-ears boy
Who they two helped become a man
To walk that fearsome walk in Vietnam.
So for all my blessed holidays I give thanksgiving
For indeed my brothers helped me go on living
Though both paid the ultimate sacrifice
Rolled those fatefully spiteful dice
Given homage to rest from mankind’s unholy malice
But now, long accomplished Vietnam, and Calvary through
I still see their brown eyes shining so bright ... so true
I still, and will forevermore ... miss you!
Rodney Roat (left) died this night
Click choppers for a ride to Vietnam Picture tour,"
from the lens and poets pen of a combat infantryman...
to leave the sweet and sour taste of "the Nam"
pungent in your nostrils.
