Presents the "Brotherhood Award" for
War Poem Excellence
Why do I love thee.....
You’re hot but your nights are shorter.........
The pain in my body is second to the pain in my mind..........
The hot day eases both......
The short night is less time to be tortured............
Burn the lights all night to keep the dark at bay..........
It doesn't work.......
The darkness is in my heart......
I have found little light to get that deep.......
And no where is there sleep........
The days I am weary and sluggish.....
Not at my self because of lack of sleep...........
The nights I dread for fear of reprisals.........
From man NO..........
If they were men or man made I could fight them.............
The pounding through my head is what I dread..........
600 wasted days and Twisted nights........
Called Nam.......
FRUSTRATION........HATE.......ANGER.............CONFUSION........... WHY...........
Always the WHY.............
Always FEAR........
Always
By Andy Williams
173rd.Airborne
As the wind howls across the desert, whipping up the Sands of Time,
It bedevil the ears, obscures the sight, and plays little games with the mind.
I watch brave Brothers and Sisters rush headlong into blowing sand,
Marching steadily at the ready, never knowing where the enemy will stand.
They bring memories of reeking rice paddies, chilling rain and humid jungle heat,
They evoke recollections of another time with a different enemy to defeat.
The Sands of Time in another dimension, and veiled by monsoon rains
Are the very same sands that are blowing now, bringing with them so much pain.
These sands are reddened with man's blood spilled, dating back to Cain and Abel
The same winds have blown throughout man's history; they are real and not a fable.
Good and evil, battling fiercely, have raged from the beginning through the ages.
It's history not as written in storybooks, but forming right here on these pages.
War and death battle incessantly on, through the air, on the land, and by the sea
Eternally fought by young men and women who are loved by you and me.
Their courage and devotion have kept men free; their love of an idea, a notion,
Their pride and glory is a spoken declaration that sets these things in motion.
It's the Sands of Time that cover a soul, obscuring the brightness of life
And ageless, sexless, Good and Evil takes them from us in this new strife:
If this old world continues to stand
Many more lives will be lost in the sand
By Andy Williams
March 30, 2003
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