The Forgotten Soldier...

I'm out of boyhood stores.  I posted the last one last week.  Last night I posted a simple poem I wrote some time ago about aging.  That reminded me of a poem I wrote back in 1966 or 1967 that has a story to go with it.

I was the bomb delivery supervisor for the 355th Tactical Fighter Wind at Takhli Air Force Base in Thailand.  I was responsible for making sure all og the armament was delivered from the bomb dump to the aircraft on the flight line for the afternoon missions.  It was hectic on the flightline in front of the revetments where the F-105s were parked.  I drove my blue pickup truck up and down the flightline and back an forth to the bomb dump to make sure the right loads got to the right airplanes.

It was hot and muggy where we were in Thailand and I carried a cooler full of soft drinks in the back of my truck for my bomb dump crews and for the load crews.

As I was driving down the flightline one of pilots waved me down.  "Can I have one of your cold drinks Sarge?"  I told him to reach into the cooler and take one.  He gave me a short salute and said, "Thanks Sarge, I'll buy you a beer when I get back."

Well, he never made it back.  He got shot down over Hanoi and spent the rest of the war as a POW at the Hanoi Hilton.

I had waited along with the crew chiefs for his plane to land, but it never did.  So I went back to my hooch and penned this poem.

THE FORGOTTEN SOLDIER

I’m the forgotten soldier of World War One,
I donned my helmet and shouldered my gun,
To fight the war to end all wars,
To rid the world of all it’s sores.
My body fell in Flander’s Field,
They say I died for freedom’s shield.

I’m the forgotten sailor of World War Two,
I boarded the ship with the rest of my crew,
To fight against the evil fascist face,
To make the world a better place.
By body’s at the bottom of the Coral Sea,
They say I died for liberty.

I’m the forgotten airman of the Korean War,
To free a country, and a little more,
To fight the hated Commie Red,
“To protect our land!” our leaders said.
My body fell in the cold, cold rain,
They said my death was not in vain.

I went to a place called Vietnam.
I flew my plane and dropped my bomb,
To keep a land from going wrong,
To stop the dreaded Viet Kong.
My fighter went down near DMZ,   
They said I died to keep us free.

I’m the future soldier of a war unknown,
But I’ll do my duty for it’s been shown
That we must fight the statesmen’s wars
In far off lands...on foreign shores.
My body will fall on some glorious mission.
Tell them I died for a politician.

I wore Lieutenant Shively's bracelet until he returned home.  I heard he got out of the Air Force and became a lawyer in Portland.  He died several years ago.  I never did get the beer he owed me.  And I will never forget him.  He was the first Thud pilot I had any personal contact with and the bitterness I felt when I heard he'd been shot down is reflected in that poem I wrote.  

http://www.veterantributes.org/TributeDetail.php?recordID=1041

Noel
 

Edited October 16, 20214 yr by birdguy