By Rodney Schmidt ~ Sept 7, 1969
I left your love, your land, your life.
But I’ll be back again someday…
It’s not that I wanted to
it’s just something I had to do.
Despite the tear of the widow’s eye,
here I am…why Vietnam?
The only reason I sleep at night,
is knowing that somehow you will understand.
You step off that plane in the black of night
Cam Ranh Bay’s no different than McChord AFB.
Then you see it, the barbed wire and sandbags.
Hey man, it’s got to be a dream.
Had any man said boo, we’d all be up the nearest tree
Including the man who said it.
Just when you started feeling secure with the rising sun
You see it, the ambulance at the dispensary.
The doors swing wide and “Oh My God!”
At least he’s here and they now can quench his pain.
You relieve yourself and force a joke and think
lucky guy, he’ll at least be home soon.
One shock goes but not for long for what is this I see.
Oh shock, or horrid terror, what is this I see.
I try not to make myself believe it’s them
The ambulance team bearing a covered stretcher.
You laugh it off because you are a man
And try not to let on it really hurt.
The callouses form
And you accept it as a new way of life.
You look around and think
He’s got to be a teenager, just like me.
Back home he’d not even be old enough to drink.
Now, he’s drunk on end for an entire year.
You look around and listen too
to think not a virgin for miles around.
You live in scum, soon you smell like scum,
what’s worse to look and feel it too.
And war is scum, all knew that’s true
Yet here we are to prove that wrong.
The callous grows thick and hard,
all goes and to survive.
There was a time when a child’s sliver
drew my deepest, tender sympathy.
Now a man loses his leg and more
but that’s now life to me.
Love…one day I’ll be home again
and this war, history.
When it’s all over, help me to forget,
Help remake me what I was.
For to you I give my heart
keep it safe…and pure…
for my return.
Rodney Schmidt Legacy 