"usmc" poems
It's been over forty years,
but I still feel the tears from
thirteen months of combat in
a no - win situation called
Vietnam. The years just keep passing
by, and still many Vietnam
Veterans die, and no one wants
to admit why.
The anger and saddness is
still there and what makes it
worse is a society that acts
as if they care, acting like
they know where we had to go
and what we had to do, and
now they just stare.
Our tears flow for our brothers
whose names are on that Wall,
the ones who answered the call
and gave all.
It is American tradition to honor
War Veterans, but they shut the
door on us and some just can't
forget.
For some better late than never,
but for me it just won't go away.
Now a whole new generation
in a different era thinks a simple
" welcome home " will do. A
generation that is blind to what
went on, and the the injustice
that we were served,
a generation that looks the other
way when the homeless living on
the street try to speak .
A generation that ignores the number of
Vietnam Veterans taking their
own lives every day.
The shock of this is so much,
I just don't know what to say.
Some of us choose to live another
day and this new generation
honoring us needs to know
that we will not just go away and
that they will have to deal with
us someday, giving more than
just a " welcome home" that
comes a little late, and they need
to know why our minds are in such
a f*^k^d up state.
Jon York USMC Vietnam 1969 -70
,
Nov 13, 2010
Nov 13, 2010 at 11:30 PM UTC
Shiny black spit-shined shoes
on the walk
in the Memorial Gardens
hurt my feet
to look at their stiffness
and his swollen ankles
in them.
His worn and creased pants
too short, belt buckle aligned
dress-right-dress
with the button fold of his shirt.
He wore
an old faded USMC campaign hat
pulled down
almost to his white eyebrows.
Almost comically.
I pitied him
in the way we sometimes do
the old who mumble,
never knowing
just who they are talking to.
I heard Inchon mentioned,
and Chosin a time or two,
and every time he said *Puller knew,
yeah, Chesty knew*.
I quit taking my lunch
with a book in the Garden
when he stopped coming around
and after I saw his picture
in the obituaries
with a description of how he won
his Silver Star and two Purple Hearts;
wishing now I had listened closer.
More’s the pity
I never spoke to him.
r ~ 6/27/14
Jun 27, 2014
Jun 27, 2014 at 11:28 AM UTC
I am sixty-four and it has been forty-three years
since I fought in America's only losing war
as a highly trained combat Marine
whose only job was to ****
and still after so long not a single day
goes by that I don't wonder
why I didn't die.
And I won't lie because there are
so many times I wish I was dead
because of what goes on in my head
and sometimes I just sit and cry
but for some reason I find strength
and overcome what was long ago done
by me as a youth and I know
that I will live to see
another season but can't
see the reason.
Thirteen months of daily combat
in the "Valley of Death" seemed over so fast
as each of us just tried to last
just one more day and now thoughts about it
forever will last and sometimes
sleep never comes because Charlie haunts
us day and night as we sit up
waiting for daylight.
Memorial Day Celebrations are nice
and they mean well but for some of us
it is our own personal Hell because of the crap
ignorant people say and their words make us sad
but at least I am glad that I am not
one of the many Veterans who will
commit suicide today and that trend continues
every day of the week 365 days a year
which has to bring a tear.
So Memorial Day just reminds Vietnam Veterans
that we are a generation that society
would like to forget but so many of us
are still here and are trying to hang on to life so dear
but so many of us know that the end
is so very near. Jon York 2013
Vietnam USMC 1969-70
A Shau Valley - I Corp
May 26, 2013
May 26, 2013 at 4:23 PM UTC
It is STILL THE SAME for a Vietnam combat Veteran and
I am sixty-nine and it has been forty-seven years since I
returned home to America after standing up for our flag
and fulfilling my job which was to **** and as a highly
trained Marine that is exactly what I did for 13 months,
taking many lives every day and at the end of the day all
that we could say is how many did we **** today?
They called us grunts and side by side we fought and died
fighting a war that we thought we could win and every day
and night it took all our training to survive and side by side
we fought for our flag as many of our friends returned
home in a body bag.
Seems like I write about Veterans Day every year and here
in 2017 IT IS STILL THE SAME for Vietnam combat
Veterans: we lived through the war, now we die at home,
we are suicide soldiers who beat the odds, but we die alone
without our squads, and we totally look forward to death,
so we can find peace and we can get some rest.
IT IS STILL THE SAME: we can never forget the eyes, the
death rattling sounds that our mind seeks to drown and
the labored breathing and vacant lifeless eyes of life loss
that we despise as we spend a lifetime with segmented
visions of memory recalling death and life in vivid color
images because with death and dying you never forget
the eyes, friend or foe and we still hear their cries.
2017 at home IS NOT THE SAME for there are those who
refuse to stand for our flag and continue to disrespect our
country and those who fought and died for it and to those
who choose not to stand can just get out of my land that
I stood up and fought for called America.
Jon York 2017
USMC Vietnam 69-70
Nov 11, 2017
Nov 11, 2017 at 1:53 PM UTC
On the night of women, Yoruyoru Yoruyoru Yoruyoru,
a business war in the United States in the war,
but the war in the United States, is so well known
that she had written in blue and white jewelry
on the approach of the Soviet Union.
European glass of power to the woman, as the eyes of the East
and 3 from the heart of the dead from the heart in the world in the mirror
in the house is completely lost to me:
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he was sitting up against Babylon, to fly about;
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littering the family tree,
every half-Australian stripper, public nudist camp scientist
who lives in the Philosophy of Science, said,
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and muscle fat o' credit mock abduction can bring
Ten ten ten ten flute
playing Aka Tuberculosis with the Arab world,
you walk down to play
the game, and the game continues, A drug
Oct 24, 2018
Oct 24, 2018 at 5:26 AM UTC
You can keep your Army khaki,
You can keep your Navy blue,
I have the World's best fighting man,
To introduce to you
His uniform is different,
The best you've ever seen,
The Germans called him "Devil Dog"
His real name is "Marine."
He was born on Parris Island,
The place where God forgot.
The sand is eighteen inches deep,
The sun is blazing hot.
He gets up every morning,
Before the rising sun.
He'll run a hundred miles and more,
Before the day is done.
He's deadly with a rifle,
A bayonet made of steel.
He took the Warrior's calling card,
He's mastered how to ****
And when he gets to Heaven,
St. Peter he will tell,
One more Marine reporting, sir,
I've spent my time in Hell.
So listen, all you young girls,
To what I have to say;
Go find yourself a young Marine,
To love you everyday.
He'll hug you and he'll kiss you,
And treat you like a queen,
There is no better Fighting Man,
The United States Marine
Jan 14, 2019
Jan 14, 2019 at 4:57 AM UTC
I returned from
Vietnam in 1970 and
the war was over in
1975 and over 58,000
died in that war and
twice as many Americans
committed suicide
after it was over.
As I write this in late
2016, 22 Veterans a
day still commit suicide
as the dying still persists.
Doesn't anyone wonder
why so many Veterans
have to still die after all
of these years and why
doesn't anybody question
this useless dying of 22
Veterans every day
or does anyone care that
this dying still persists.
Jon York 2016 - USMC, Vietnam 69 - 70
Nov 21, 2016
Nov 21, 2016 at 7:07 PM UTC
Frank Sutton was an actor who died half a century ago.
He starred in one episode of "The Andy Griffith Show".
He starred in every episode of "Gomer Pyle: USMC".
Sutton died fifty years ago today at the age of fifty.
People were sad because he wouldn't be coming back.
Sutton's life came to an end when he had a heart attack.
He starred in "The Twilight Zone" and "Town Without Pity".
He starred in "Armstrong Circle Theater" and "Naked City".
He starred in "Love, American Style" and "Valentine's Day".
Sutton would be 100 years old if he hadn't passed away.
Jun 28, 2024
Jun 28, 2024 at 9:00 AM UTC
Seventy-five years into this life this September and I'm still trying to figure out its riddle. I'm not against aging, I'm against getting old. I've learned that the trick is to live a long time without getting old.
THE BIGGEST MISTAKE WE MAKE IN OUR LIVES
IS THINKING WE HAVE TIME Success is never owned. It is only rented; and rent is due everyday.
I write poetry in an effort to heal my severe PTSD resulting from a stupid war I served in while in the USMC some 50 years ago.
I write about successes and failures in my life, joys and sorrows in my life, events that made me marvel, mostly relating to relationships and love. I write poems on how to have meaning in life, how to hurt people less and how to get hurt less.
Someday we'll meet again, In another life of course, for in this lifetime you couldn't be mine. I'll follow your trails life after life, for my soul is bound to yours..in a connection that goes beyond space and time. We will meet again.. yes my love, again and again until we become one.
I'm 75 this month and I'm still not sure why I'm still here but I do intend to live a long time without getting old. Jon York 2023
Sep 23, 2023
Sep 23, 2023 at 11:28 AM UTC