Conquering Hero

This was a piece I wrote for a flash fiction challenge awhile ago.  I wrote it in memory of a friend who did not die in Vietnam.  He died because of Vietnam.  

Found it again and thought it might be appropriate to re-publish it here with a new year looming and all.  What can we do to keep this kind of legacy from repeating itself in our future?
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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 for him.  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 premeditated 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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Later ..............................................