Reflections Page 2
Welcome Home
I stand facing that cold gray stone for the first time,
Your name leaping out at me.
My breath is squeezed from my chest.
Finally, after all these years, you’re home.
I want to speak, but the words aren’t there.
I choke back tears as I kneel
On the hardened clay that is now your bed.
Hesitantly, my fingers brush across the letters
Cut from the granite.
I don’t want this to be real,
I’ve lost you before I knew you.
Trembling as I stand, I honor you
With that long-awaited Salute.
Your Brothers are at my side joining the Salute
And providing much needed support.
I turn away as the tears begin to flow.
“Welcome Home Soldier.”
Written by: Christy Comer
In Search of You, I Find Me
I never knew you while you lived.
That opportunity was never given to me.
I have so many questions….and yet so few answers.
Would we have had anything in common?
Could I relate to you at all?
Would you have encouraged my dreams,
And calmed my fears?
Would I have found in you what has been missing in me?
Would you still have been my Hero?
In my search for you, I found the Brotherhood.
Somehow, you are there with them.
I feel you in the midst of my new found family.
Are you the one that led me Home?
Is it you that reaches out to me through them?
Have I finally found you in the Brothers that love and miss you?
Will you be there at the Garden of Stone returning our Salute?
Will you be watching when I earn my wings?
I may not find the answers to these questions,
But, on my quest to find you, I began the journey of finding myself.
I’ve found that I can be proud of who I am, and who I want to become.
I’ve found that in times of weakness, in me there is strength.
I’ve found that no matter how dark the day seems, the light is just on
the other side of the clouds.
I can lift my head, now……..no more hiding behind a mask.
I know who I am……and I am not ashamed.
Thank you for giving me life, even in your death.
In Loving Memory of my Uncle:
Howard B. Comer Jr.
187th Assault Helicopter Company
And to honor all who served our Great Nation.
Written by Christy Comer<
I Will Remember…
You stepped on soil far from home.
You fought a battle not your own.
You flew the Flag with American pride
You stood strong at your brothers’ side.
To the right and left your comrades fell,
Yet you didn’t falter through that hell.
You stood your ground to the end
Then gave your life to save a friend.
I was young, a FNG
The life you saved that day was me.
You took my place in line to die,
Now on the blood drenched ground you lie.
Thirty years have come and gone,
And still that day in me lives on.
At night I see you in my dreams
I have yet to shake those horrible scenes.
You chose to spare my life that day
A debt I could never repay.
I made a vow right there and then,
To honor you in life, my Friend.
I set the goals I must achieve
Now all that’s left is to believe.
You gave your life that I might live
So today, my all is all I give.
I have become who I am now
Upon completion of that vow.
To do the very best I can
And never forget the fallen man.
Written by Christy Comer<
You Gave All
You gave your life in an unpopular war.
Some say yours was a useless death.
NOT SO!!
Your death brought life to my soul.
It caused me to begin searching,
Not knowing what I might find.
Because of your unselfish sacrifice,
I finally know genuine, unconditional love.
I found what it means to be a family.
I tried to find you,
And found an amazing circle of friends.
In times of weakness, they are my strength.
When sorrow fills my heart,
They help me to smile again.
When tears must be shed,
They are the shoulder for me to cry on.
They encourage my dreams,
And shelter me from fear.
They’ve given me hope for a better tomorrow
When dark clouds cover today.
I may never have met you face to face,
But, I’ve known you through the Brothers
That stayed behind.
Had I not known your death,
I would have never known real life.
All Gave Some, But You Gave All.
Written by Christy Comer<
I am your Flag
I was born on June 14th, 1777.
I am more than just cloth shaped into a design.
I am the refuge of the World's oppressed people.
I am the silent sentinel of Freedom.
I am the emblem of the greatest sovereign nation on earth.
I am the inspiration for which American Patriots gave their lives and fortunes.
I have led your sons into battle from Valley Forge to the bloody swamps of
Viet Nam.
I walk in silence with each of your Honored Dead, to their final resting place
beneath the silent White Crosses, row upon row.
I have flown through Peace and War, Strife and Prosperity, and amidst it all I
have been respected.
My Red Stripes . . . symbolize the blood spilled in defense of this glorious nation.
My White Stripes . . . signify the burning tears shed by Americans who lost
their sons.
My Blue Field. . . is indicative of God's heaven under which I fly.
My Stars . . . clustered together, unify 50 States as one, for God and Country.
"Old Glory" is my nickname, and proudly I wave on high.
Honor me, respect me, defend me with your lives and your fortunes.
Never let my enemies tear me down from my lofty position, lest I never return.
Keep alight the fires of patriotism, strive earnestly for the spirit of democracy.
Worship Eternal God and keep His commandments, and I shall remain the
bulwark of peace and freedom for all mankind.
I am your Flag.
Compliments of Colonel Daniel K. Cedusky, USAR, Retired
I Was A Soldier
By Colonel Daniel K. Cedusky, USAR, Retired
I was a Soldier: That's the way it is, that's what we were...are. we put it, simply, without any swagger, without any brag, in those four plain words.
We speak them softly, just to ourselves. Others may have forgotten
They are a manifesto to mankind; speak those four words anywhere in the world -- yes, anywhere -- and many who hear will recognize their meaning.
They are a pledge. A pledge that stems from a document which said: "I solemnly Swear", "to protect and defend" and goes on from there, and from a Flag called "Old Glory".
Listen, and you can hear the voices echoing through them, words that sprang white-hot from bloody lips, shouts of "medic", whispers of "Oh God!", forceful words of "Follow Me". If you can’t hear them, you weren’t, if you can you were.
"Don't give up the ship! Fight her till she dies... Damn the torpedoes! Go ahead! . . . Do you want to live forever? . . . Don't cheer, boys; the poor devils are dying."
Laughing words, and words cold as January ice, words that when spoken, were meant, .. "Wait till you see the whites of their eyes". The echo's of I was a Soldier.
You can hear the slow cadences at Gettysburg, or Arlington honoring not a man, but a Soldier, perhaps forgotten by his nation...Oh! Those Broken Promises.
You can hear those echoes as you have a beer at the "Post", walk in a parade, go to The Wall, visit a VA hospital, hear the mournful sounds of tap, or gaze upon the white crosses, row upon row.
But they aren't just words; they're a way of life, a pattern of living, or a way of dying.
They made the evening, with another day's work done; supper with the wife and kids; and no Gestapo snooping at the door and threatening to kick your teeth in.
They gave you the right to choose who shall run our government for us, the right to a secret vote that counts just as much as the next fellow's in the final tally; and the obligation to use that right, and guard it and keep it clean.
They prove the right to hope, to dream, to pray; the obligation to serve.
These are some of the meanings of those four words, meanings we don't often stop to tally up or even list.
Only in the stillness of a moonless night, or in the quiet of a Sunday afternoon, or in the thin dawn of a new day, when our world is close about us, do they rise up in our memories and stir in our sentient hearts.
And we are remembering Wake Island, and Bataan, Inchon, and Chu Lai, Knox and Benning, Great Lakes and Paris Island, Travis and Chanute, and many other places long forgotten by our civilian friends.
They're plain words, those four. Simple words.
You could grave them on stone; you could carve them on the mountain ranges.
You could sing them, to the tune of "Yankee Doodle."
But you needn't. You needn't do any of those things, for those words are graven in the hearts of Veterans, they are familiar to 24,000,000 tongues, every sound and every syllable. If you must write them, put them on my Stone.
But when you speak them, speak them softly, proudly, I will hear you, for I too,
I was a Soldier.
https://www.angelfire.com/il2/VeteranIssues/
Inspired By "Creed" I am an American by Hal Borland
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