I was watching a video earlier today. It included clips from a FOB in Iraq.
The camera swung around and momentarily centered on a piece of paper on a bulletin board:
I will Always Place the Mission First
I will Never Accept Defeat
I Will Never Quit
I Will Never Leave a Fallen Comrade
That is a mantra I can hear in Mike’s voice.
He lost vastly more shipmates than I did. I called him, got his voice mail. He called back a few hours later. Pouring rain in Pittsburg, he was picking up his son, now a senior in highs school. Told me he would call me back tomorrow.
The weather here has been officially too pretty.
I didn’t want to but I took an hour nap. I am struggling with becoming human again.
Shipmates and Cheyenne became an ear worm.
I have a crazy feeling I am not going to live much longer.
“Adrift in the meadows of time.” But when I go, I’ll go knowing I loved words. Words can’t wrap themselves around me to steal my heat. But they always satisfy.
Shipmates and Cheyenne, raindrops and cryin’
Haunt the dreams of an old, old man
Candles and church bells, laughter and farewells
Revolve in his thoughts like a wind
Stallions and blizzards, steelies and lizards
Adrift in the meadows of time
No sense of progression, of age or direction
No meter, no form, no rhyme
I’ll hold me one
Just one rising sun
Long after daylight is gone
I’ll hold me one
One more rising sun
Till my daylight and darkness is done
Kingdoms and cupboards, losers and lovers
And evenings of blackberry wine
Falling like sand, the memory of hands
And kisses, and whispers and sighs
I’ll hold me one
Just one rising sun
Till long after daylight is gone
I’ll hold me one
One more rising sun
Till my daylight and darkness is done
I’ll hold me one
One rising sun
One more rising sun
Till my daylight and darkness is done
-Joe Henry / John Denver
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