Where Have All the Young Men Gone--Again?

The flowers went to young men, the young men went to soldiers, the soldiers went to graveyards. A different war, yes, yet it seems so much the same.

I was there for Vietnam. I saw it from an angle that few people saw it at the age of 13.

I was a Red Cross volunteer, working at a military hospital near Tokyo, Japan. I saw the young men arrive at the transit quarter. Most were gung-ho, ready to whup some butt and collect their combat pay.

I was there with the 82nd Airborne climbing Mt Fuji on one of the training maneuvers from sunset to sunrise.

I was there when they came back to the hospital broken and bleeding wondering what happened. They were too young, didn't comprehend.

My father went and four years later my older brother and many of our high school friends went.

It was enough war for a lifetime.

But it wasn't.

Again and again they send them--the fearless men who jump and die...

Thirty years later, I scream it to the wind because no one is listening-- N-O-T M-Y S-O-N.

And then, yes, even my son. He chose to be a soldier, an Army of One.

And the young men have gone to soldiers, to graves. Again.

Too many.

When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn.