I didn't know him well.
I was only just twenty.
He was the first Indian
I had ever met though
he called himself a Skin.
Came from northern Nebraska.
He was tall, strong, quiet
and soft spoken
with a strange authority.
Somehow, he could sense fear.
At the end of the first day
over An Loc I was
well beyond fear, beyond
terrified, barely functional.
While we refueled
he came over and told me
not to worry. Every day,
he said, was a good day to die.
First time I ever heard
Crazy Horse's famous phrase.
In the morning, his waddling,
overloaded chopper took
a SAM missile up the ***
and totally disintegrated:
no wreckage, no bodies,
no anything left at all.
There's nothing
really left to say
except I hope that for him
it was a very good day.

  ~mce