VIETNAM ONE WEEKS DEAD

Now that I am single, and spring cleaning has not time to rush

through, I become easily distracted.

Yesterday, it was the closet in my spare bedroom

that holds most of the grand girls toys.

I had to clean them all out, downsize but each

one brought back some type of memory.

It took hours. So this morning I am like,

"okay, today I am going to finish this task"

Then I come across the stack of over 

15 full Life magazines that I found last

night in that very same closet.

The dates on the magazines? 1967 through 1969.

As I layed in Touro Hospital fighting my

own battle called Cancer, my brother fought

a battle known as Vietnam. 

This morning the magazines get my attention.

Especially the one with the article titled,

 VIETNAM, ONE WEEK'S DEAD

dated June 27, 1969.

This article strikes me because I associate

Vietnam with brother, Peter.

As I look through the article I am

surprised by the first two pages having

24 young mens images there, all between

the ages of 18 to 25. Way too young to die.

The real shocker is when I turn the page.

you see, those were not the only ones killed

in the total of that one week,

there are 10 more pages filled with pictures

of more young men, ages the same.

In one week, a war that some believe should 

have never happened,

142 young men lost their lives!

I am shocked, I am saddened, I am proud.

Proud that Life magazine believed this war

was important and that they placed each ones

picture in their magazine. I am saddened to realize

how many of those lives would have made

even more of a difference in the world than 

what might they have been if not having 

to fight a war. I am proud, so very proud 

that I have a brother, who like these men,

went to a place he knew little about 

not because it might have been what he wanted

but because it is what his country, Our Country

asked of him. My brother, we were so lucky,

came home alive, but in no way will I say he

paid a lesser price than those faces spread

across the pages of an old Life magazine.

My brother went away as an innocent young

man and came back as someone else and

none of us, NONE will ever know exactly

what he may have been had he not had a war to

fight in. Yet, although his health is not the best,

he is finally recognized fully by the

County as a VETERAN, A HERO.

He went on to be a father, a husband,

a Pop, a funny man but not the brother he 

went away as.

So I close the Life magazine as I am just

not ready to read the article. I will now

go and continue to clean my cottage

but in no way will my mind or heart leave that article as

one mans words,

"I SEE DEATH COING UP THE HILL"

the last words he wrote to his dear Mother,

wil not leave my mind on this most beautiful day,

a day that I will remember,

WE ARE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE.

Thank you brother and all those other heroes.