My Enemy
The Sun settled
slowly,
After a long and
costly fight,
And I with the
rest of the men who survived,
Pulled back and
dug in for the night.
In front of us in
an open field,
Lay those we could
not save,
Their mangled
bodies stiff and cold,
Their lives for
freedom gave.
I sat alone on
listening post,
But nothing could
I see,
Yet across the
field at another post,
I knew one sat
like me.
I wondered if by chance he
too,
Were trying not to
cry,
Remembering all
the friends he’d lost,
Asking why they
had to die.
Suddenly my
feelings changed,
No hatred could I
find,
How strange that
this my enemy,
Would have feeling
just like mine.
I wanted then to
meet him,
But would he
understand,
If I stood in
peace before him,
And offered him my
hand?
With a rifle shot,
the answer came,
And I knew it
could not be,
For that young man
across the field,
He was my enemy.
And so I put away
my thoughts,
And forgot about
my friend,
For I knew
tomorrow we’d probably meet,
And for one it
would be the end.
We did meet the following day and although I do not know
if it was his… a hand grenade exploded just a few feet in front of me, sending shrapnel
through the air, a piece of which shattered my glasses… causing me to loss vision
in one eye. I wrote this poem a few months later, while recovering from those
wounds at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. It is not one of my better
poems but it does express well what I was feeling at that time in my life. A lot
has changed since then… and yet, only recently, have I realized the
significance of what I wrote back in 1968.
It did not take me long back then, to go from pro-American
to anti-establishment Hippie. I exchanged my gun for a Bible, went from
Republican to Democrat, left the work force to become a volunteer, and realized
that there were alternatives to being straight. I considered myself to be a
much better person… more loving, more open, and much more intelligent than any pro-American,
straight, gun carrying, workaholic, Republican, and up until recently,
delighted in defending my position with anyone who dared challenge me.
Perhaps I have just grown tired of the challenges… or
maybe it is, that in my old age, I have finally come to the Understanding, that to
become friends with your enemies, you must to be willing to step away from the
playing fields and not take sides with those who choose to continue playing the games.
