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HOMEWARD BOUND
BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE
HOMEWARD BOUND
.
Open your arms, Dear Lord!
On this sacred day,
For a proud Marine
is on his way.
.
It was like nothing we’d ever
seen before,
when he reported for duty
at Heaven’s door.
Deep in the night,
as the world slept sound,
his chariot arrived,
and he was homeward bound.
.
The ultimate grunt,
Dress Blues now white;
One Marine standing tall
on this most sacred of nights.
Young and vibrant,
wounds of battle now gone.
No more suffering or pain,
As he rose to move on.
.
With one final glance
at the ones that he love,
he was whisked through the clouds
to his deployment above.
His chariot was swift,
with six Restless white horses.
Then the thunder roared,
and his chariot departed.
.
We’ll miss his warm smile,
In our own selfish way,
But your gift to the Corps
will be back home today.
.
Semper Fi, my friend.
Lt. Col. Mario Carazo
Dedicated by Ssgt. E. Michele Paul
Happy Veterans Day
Eric L. Wattree
wattree.blogspot.com
Ewattree@Gmail.com
Labels: Grunt, USMC, Valor, Veteran, Veterans Day
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=59769
Posted by Eric L. Wattree on Nov 11 2010, With 0 Reads, Filed under Military. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Veterans Today, Veterans Today. Veterans Today said: New post: HOMEWARD BOUND http://bit.ly/bIAqak [...]
Faces without names;
faces with names.
Their blood was spilt
while mine remains;
I feel no guilt,
it is me here and not them;
who survived to see their
names on the wall.
They are forever;
my destiny is small
under back pasture dirt,
wrapped in a towel.
Who really won?
None of us all;
But they’re on the wall.
Names, faces and all.
Thank you, my friend. Best wishes to you too!
T. First Cav Vet
Hey, T,
You’re full of surprises. This is great. I mean, REALLY great.
Eric
Clearly E, you are a sick man.
Nothing matches your superlative Vets poem.
T. Texas Vet
T,
I’m a poet who consider most poetry a lot of self-indulgent crap – including much of my own, unless I’m having a good day. But your poem above is both touching, insightful, and very well crafted. You didn’t go out of your way to rhyme, yet it did. In addition, it flows well, and I felt like I was reading a heartfelt emotion rather than some contrivance designed to sound like one of the classical poets you’ve read. So don’t sell yourself short. That’s a great poem.
Eric
E. You’re too kind my friend. Enjoy your turkey this week — while I’m feasting on a bunch of veggies and pumpkin pie.
If you don’t tell anyone, I had my first two poems nationally published in some poetic journal while I was in the ninth grade. I was such a little country kid, I was embarrassed half to death.
One poem titled “Here They Come Again” was about defending against wave after wave of enemy attacks. In the poem, I, along with all the others died. When I grew up and became a real soldier, I found myself caught in the same battlefield trap as my prophetic poem. This time I escaped, battered and bloody, but not many others.
The other early poem of national insignificance was about the short life of a baby chicken; Tootle was his name. He was a little, house-raised white leghorn who was trained to sing by my Mom’s canary, becoming a small chicken family member who tootled along behind everywhere we went.
We had an old radio my Dad liked to sit and listen to in the evening and Tootle would climb up his pants leg to his shoulder and on top his head and tootle to sleep. Dad — a one-eyed WWII Vet — was so proud of this. This went on quite some weeks before Tootle slept one evening to the program Arthur Godfrey or something. Something startled Tootle and he let a big chicken crap down my Dad’s forehead, eyes and nose. You can imagine the rest — the gist of the poem and Tootle’s remaining life.
Or, maybe you can’t
T.