Friday, January 30, 2015

Conquering Hero

This a piece I wrote for a flash fiction challenge.  I wrote it in memory of a friend who did not die in Vietnam.  He died because of Vietnam.
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His eyes were full of the things he had seen.  His mouth, full of stories better passed over than passed down.  Memories caught in his craw and woke him sweating cold in the dread of his nights and left him staring into his darkness til Dawn’s early light.


Well meaning people wearing blue scrubs and white coats did what they could.  As it was with so many others, it did not work out.  Scarred and broken he was sent back to a homeland that would never be the same.  His innocence pooled bloody on too many foreign plains.  Feeling forgotten, discarded and alone with his demons, he sought solace in barbiturates, whiskey and gin.  He could never forget his role in the pre-meditated chaos of Man killing Man in faraway lands.

One day he gave up, double hit China White, laid down, and he died.  Before his curtain closed, with one final sigh, the untold stories and nightmares at last said goodbye.  Our conquering hero had finally found his peace.
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6 comments:

Ol'Buzzard said...

War sucks.
the Ol'Buzzard

MRMacrum said...

Ol'Buzzard - Indeed it does. Humanity seems to love it though.

The Blog Fodder said...

Nor are we done with it yet. We stand on the edge of 1914 but this time with nucs.

MRMacrum said...

Blog Fodder - Nukes? It is a shame we cannot pass on the fear I had as a child during the Cuban Missile Crisis or the period leading up to it.

The Blog Fodder said...

America's use of nuclear bombs on Japan served as a warning to Stalin. that and the fact that American troops did not go home immediately after the war kept him from continuing his march to the English Channel. That lesson seems to be forgotten by Putin who is now threatening Ukraine with nuclear weapons if America arms her military.

MRMacrum said...

Blog Fodder - The claim that the Cold War is over in my opinion is less than accurate. The name may have changed, but the thuggish mindset remains the same.

The only thing that has changed is the corruption and oppression that once existed behind closed doors is now more in th eopen for all to see. Putin is a gangster running a gangster state.