Uncle Sam drafted me after High School
and gave me a gun.
"I don't believe in killing,
I believe in saving souls." I told them.
The sergeant smiled and said,
"Okay, then I have the perfect job for you."
Now, here I am swatting mosquitoes and marching
in the jungles of Vietnam.
Being a front-line medic
is the pits.
Yet, I'd rather try to save you
then kill you.
I'm just one of three in this platoon,
trying to keep the men healthy and sane.
Yet, we are marching in this maddening melee
with nothing but band-aids,
and here bullets fly like bees ready to sting.
Suddenly, the sound of war finds us.
As rockets explode on the ground
and machine-gun fire cuts the air.
I see the man on point go down
with blood running rivers of red.
I run to his side to see what I can do
only to see his insides on the outside.
I give him a "band-aid over a bullet wound"
there is nothing else I can do,
I stay by his side as a brother-of-arms.
No one wants to die alone.
"Tell my wife, I love her," he says,
and dies in my arms.
I feel anger burst into flames from the bottom of the pit.
I grab his M-16 rifle in rage,
shoot and see the enemy fall.
Tainted by this blood lust,
I lose myself in the fighting,
shooting and seeing death in the eye,
and then I hear someone call,
"Medic!"
and I snap.
What am I doing?
I drop the rifle to help my men,
dragging one to shelter,
another I carry over my shoulder.
More enemy soldiers join the battle
and the fighting becomes fierce.
I hear chaos laughing
as I apply tourniquets to the stumps of soldiers' legs,
band-aid shrapnel-mutilated bodies
with bullets zinging around us.
Then... silence as the soldiers regroup.
Moans and groans of the hurt and dying
is the only sound.
Death becomes a reality,
as we counted the body bags,
many are filled with just bits and pieces.
Then, a grenade lands in front of us,
and I don't think but protect my men.
That is the last thing I remember
as they carry me and play my song.
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