To those who returned home with no one to greet them, to doorways that stayed dark, to dinners left untouched, to footsteps that echoed in empty rooms.
To those who were told PTSD would go away with time, who were handed calendars and told to wait to calendars that folded into pockets like secrets
To those who never heard "thank you" outside a hospital ward, whose valor was papered over with silence, I fold a thousand thank yous into these lines to those who were never officially welcomed home, no band, no brass, no ribbon pinned to the quiet arrivals under ordinary ceilings
To those who returned in body and remained in the storm, haunted by the nightmare that began overseas, who wake at noon remembering dusk to those who still flinch at a backfire, whose hearts mistake thunder for attack, to palms that sweat at a distant boom
To those who break a sweat at the sound of a chopper, who count rotor-blades in the dark, who count breaths instead of sheep, these lines are a slow rotorsong that brings you back.
To those who have traveled endlessly, never letting roots take hold, who planted bags at every stop, moved like weather, to the men and women who are maps without home
To those who hear a familiar song and fall back into a place they’d rather forget, whose bodies remember footprints better than faces to those who can count friends on one hand for fear of losing another, who keep love in a ledger and grief in a drawer
To those who suffer from Agent Orange exposure, whose bodies carry a war that never shut its mouth, to those still fighting the last battle, the one that never closed, to those who rise each morning to the same war
To those who fought in steaming jungles and also in cities, to those who met danger in green and in grey, your courage is not smaller for where it was spent, it is wide as the sky that covered you both times.
To those who have more friends on any Vietnam Memorial than in real life, whose names hang in bronze where your voice should be to mothers who waited, to fathers who kept vigil, to children who grew with empty chairs at tables, to siblings who learned to be two people at once these words fold you in, whole and real.
To the ones who came back with medals and with missing pieces, to the ones who returned with trophies and with tremors, to the ones who never left at all not in their heads, I lay down a red ribbon, a quiet flag, a song to mend.
To those who came back to those we carry still, to the names we whisper, to the faces we must not forget thank you for your sacrifice and your service let the world learn from you. Sorry for how you were treated and welcome home.
Heathen_AJ
