If You Are Able

[The Cooler King]

If you are able,
save them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.

Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.

And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.

Major Michael David O'Donnell
Written 1 January 1970
MIA 24 March 1970
Dak To, Vietnam

http://www.virtualwall.org/do/OdonnellMD01a.htm



Mike

[frisco-kid]

Thanks, Mike. I never get tired of reading it.

[The Cooler King]

No problem Tom. It is a very touching poem even for someone who wasn't there, like myself.

Mike

[DMZ-LT]

I remember every day. THANKS

[b3196]

Yup....Me too
Bob K

[Robert Ryan]

I will never forget Dak To.