Posted 12 years ago
mikielikes…
(186 items)
My dad, (first row, 3rd from the left, pict#2) whos 90 yrs. old this yr., couldnt remember if this was tken at a training camp (on the east coast) or in england, where he was stationed as a bombader & tailgunner in the 8th army air force on a B-17. Like many soldiers, he had a forged birth-certificate stating he was 2 yrs. older than he really was. Its hard to believe that before this, he had never been more than 20 miles away from his parents (built from native rock & whatever they could find) home in Poteau Okla . Now hes a 17 yr. old (just) country kid being shot at with 88mm ant-aircraft flack guns over Germany. 3 tours, countless missions, afraid to make any friends, knowing most wouldnt finish the war, he became a MAN , met my mom & tried to bury the experiances of his time served. I was 30 before he ever felt comfortable enough to "re-live" his time spent in the air. He still, to this day, wakes up occasionally in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. I know i speak for every American when i say "thank you dad"
I hope no one finds this pretentious, but when I read this post I felt compelled to give this poem, that I wrote in 2001, to mikielikes Dad and all the men he served with and was a part of:
NOTHING MORE
We were there for you in forty-one
steel gray coffins pierced by hot rays of the Rising Sun.
We plodded barefoot at Bataan
Taken mercilessly by the Dawn.
In the North Atlantic where we sleep
So many Brothers in the deep.
We built a road with Vinegar Joe
and flew the Hump, we had to go.
We tasted blood on the sea
Midway ‘tween home and the enemy.
In Africa, in Sicily, and the in toe of Italy
We lost our eyes, our limbs, and our blood
We moved forward caked in mud.
We lay on the sands of a Pacific isle
wrapped in blood-stained ponchos, single file.
Our aircrews were shredded in the deadly flak
Four planes flown, three came back.
The Greatest Armada ever put to sea
landed We Allies on Normandy.
We leapt from planes to marshes below
We were bent but not broken by the Axis foe.
We were tangled and torn and bruised at the Bulge
At Malmandy our dead froze cold.
We crossed blue rivers and turned them Red
The green of the jungles concealed our Dead.
We sobbed at the horrors in the Camps of Death
The Concentration of pain took our breath.
We judged the guilty, propped up the weak,
Fed the poor and urged the meek.
Father, Mother, Daughter, Son,
We were the people in uniform.
As on Suribachi our Flag unfurled
We did nothing more than save the World!
For those of the “Greatest Generation”
By Mike Murray
2001
Thank u : Jason, scandinavian, Packrat, & mike, i had to bring my wife to the computer, some time after i read your poem, just to watch her face as she read my original comment about my dad, & then made her way down threw your poem. I can tell u , she started reading it out load,but , by the 10th or 12th line the emotions that your peom evokes had silenced her. Im just glad u couldnt see my eyes, not that im ashamed, im just very proud to have known one of the members of the "greatest generation". Im printing this off, because, as i mentioned, he is 90 yrs. old, & not doing so well thse days. I dont intend to give this to him, to him , he was just doing what had to be done, but , when hecompletes his final mission, THIS is what will be said in his honor. THANK YOU
I am honored.
thank you manikin ,sorry to all about "pourin my guts out" but, he IS quite a man, something for me to shoot at, wount ever get too