We spoke the day
after I dropped a cup
of scalding tea on my arm.
Flesh felt icy-cold, then
bubbled white-hot & red.
You said, it'll hurt like hell for
a week but only slightly
disfigure your skin.
You were right.
But the pain, shit, the pain.
Only Percodan allowed me to sleep.
And I think of "our boys"
releasing canister upon canister
of napalm at temperatures of 1,800 degrees:
jellied petroleum & "a world of hurt."
You never talk much
about your injury.
How 28 years later
the damn thing still
aches in the Montana winters.
Twenty-eight years later
the damn thing still aches...
Maggie Jaffe
About 22 years ago, I woke up in that hospital ward in Takoda, Japan. I was one of many young men. Most, like me, would go home to families and loved ones devastated by the horror of what they would have to confront; a few had only hours to live, their families to be devastated by that loss. I can't begin to tell you of the pain to which I awoke. It was utterly overwhelming -- pain within me, despair all around me. If my words today could somehow in the future, take one moment of such pain away from one soldier, I would feel like I had accomplished a great deal.
In my final words I would like to remind our leaders that wars do not end. They live on in the people that are touched by them. A war in the Gulf would touch millions of people and make no mistake about it, this will be your war.
Ed Miles of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.©