Bullets are flying and grenades tossed, from the enemy?
Shrapnel Exploding, ripping my skin, tearing, mutilating.
The screams of Johnny next to me is all that I fully comprehend,
His guts been blown open, that he is dead is what I fear.

Fists not big enough, fluids, insides spill
Teeth gritted, grinding, his hand clasped on mine, loosens, falls.
The blood flows, life is drained, back his eyes roll.
Pointless war, not a cause, killed him, took his soul.

A bullet, or something, rips though flesh, to bone.
A foxhole. In it, I drag myself. Alone, I think.
A man. Medic? Must be. Flesh and bone, now bound.
A helicopter. Still raining. Bullets. Down. Blackness.

Three weeks later, I can think now.
Everything’s not so jumbled, scrambled.
It has set in though, the death and pain.
But Johnny’s not here, can’t be, war stole his soul.

Many men died, but none I knew so well.
A good man, he was, saved many lives,
Including my own, a time or two.
And now, I let him die. Why? I let him die.

“The world,” who the hell said this was better than Nam?
Depression and death, what I remember from the war,
Depression and guilt, what I have now.
Fuck the world, the world has fucked me.