Veterans

Soldiers sent to distant lands…
on distant shores…
compelled, commanded, coerced
to confront and to combat
different people of different cultures,
speaking different languages,
worshiping in different ways,
valuing things differently,
having different sacred days,
and embroiled in their own internal
power struggles, clashes, and ethnic conflicts…
are returning as veterans,
aged, hardened, changed,
after having been ordered
to give it all… to risk it all…
to sacrifice it all…
life and limb…

They are not only
left shell-shocked,
but deeply traumatized,
having been through hell,
emotionally and spiritually shaken,
uprooted, confounded, confused,
left vulnerable and helpless,
when promised help
and promised service
was not rendered
in time…
virtually ignored by those
who had sent them into harm’s way!
Many a returning veteran
was left jobless…and homeless…
and hopelessly alone…
while trying to come to terms…
with what had been experienced…
perhaps feeling the need to atone…
for what had been ordered
to be done…
then sent home…
fortunate if physically unharmed…
or contained in flag-draped coffins…
to become names engraved on granite walls…

Those who are lucky to still be alive…
are, nonetheless, left internally troubled
deeply wounded…in spirit and soul…
left with deep scars in the memory
of the horrors of war…

left with personal struggles and turmoil…
perhaps even fallen prey to the victimization
of drug and alcohol abuse…
with perpetual personal battles
to be fought… lost, or won…
left as emotional wrecks…
restless…raging….and resentful…
with a war within
unending…seemingly forever
to go on…

Text und Fotos von © Gerhard A. Fuerst (*1936), USA, 30.05.2014