Poetry Break – “Let Me Tell You How I Died” – Part I Finale – An Old Soldier

  Posted on December 11, 2018 By

 56 Comments

Hello everyone!  As promised, here is the final segment of Part I of my Poem epic – the conclusion to the WWII part of the series (which is brought to you with some mild confusion on the new block editor … so apologies if it doesn’t look the same!) I hope you have enjoyed this first part!  Next year, the epic will return with Part II which covers the First World War.  I will look forward to seeing you then.    

LET ME TELL YOU HOW I DIED

PART I – SEGMENT 7 

An Old Soldier

Alone in a hospital room, with no one around

Just hurried doctors, making their rounds

I can’t eat, or walk, or even breathe on my own

I’m hooked up to machines, they beep and drone

 

But I can tell you that’s not how it used to be

There was a time long ago, if only you could see

I once charged a battlefield, without any thanks

I fought off guns, artillery, and tanks

 

I stormed across France and liberated towns

I beat up the Nazis, tore their swastikas down

I was shot at, wounded, and exposed to the cold

But I took it all in stride, a young man so bold

 

Then came the real battle, as the years went by

The war with time, my how does it fly

In the world’s biggest war, I paid my due

But that’s just a memory, evaporated like spring dew

 

My hair turned white, eyes faded, the leaves brown

I’m old and feeble, and all worn down

So they unhooked the machine, and away I go

To the place on the timeline where I was a hero

For an Intro and Segment 1 (the Blitz) of this Series – Click Here

For Segment 2 (Stalingrad) – Click Here 

For Segment 3 (Pearl Harbor) – Click Here

For Segment 4 (Normandy) – Click Here

For Segment 5 (Iwo Jima) – Click Here

For Segment 6 (The Bomb) – Here! 

This will be my last post of 2018!  I wish you all a very Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year!  Be sure to tune back in in 2019 for lots more history, poetry, photography, and more!  

 Category: History, World War II      Tags: , , , ,

56 Comments on “Poetry Break – “Let Me Tell You How I Died” – Part I Finale – An Old Soldier”

    • Yay! Will be glad to have you along for it, Dave. A Happy Holidays and New Year to you as well

      Reply

  5. Nice to have one of your soldiers live a long life. Fabulous series of poems. I’ll look for you next year! (Can it really be around the corner already?)

    Reply

    • I know right? This year just flew by didn’t it? My goodness! Glad you enjoyed the work!

      Reply

  9. A great ending to a wonderful series! Enjoyed these lovely tributes, MB.

    Sidenote: what’s up with the new block editor? I don’t like it!

    Reply

    • That’s a very good question. I’m not sure I’m a fan of it either. The other version was so much simpler! So glad you enjoyed the poems 🙂

      Reply

  10. Beautiful and sad. Thank you for sharing your talent with all of us. Your Godmother Clarice iis smiling down on you!

    Reply

  11. My father was one of those guys who refused to talk about his time in service. For him, it was all about the heat and illness of New Guinea (where he lost sight in one eye, along with his sense of smell and taste) and the boredom and cruelty of being a guard in a German POW camp in New Mexico.

    But those last few years, with the frequent trips to the VA, and the time spent in waiting rooms with other vets, he opened up.

    In his last few weeks, slowly suffocating from the damage done to his lungs many years ago in the South Pacific, he came to realize that he found a place in the timeline, where he could be a hero.

    Reply

    • I did a lot of interviews with veterans for my book, and I found that when veterans were around other veterans, that is when they were most themselves and the most open. It’s a bond that I can’t imagine ever goes away. I’m so sorry about your dad <3

      Reply

  12. MB, Enjoyed your 2018 posts, including the How I Died series. Looking forward to your 2019 posts. I hope you and your husband have a great holiday season and a happy, healthy 2019.

    Reply

    • Thank you very much for the compliments and the well-wishes! 🙂 I hope you have a wonderful holiday season as well 🙂 See you in 2019!

      Reply

    • Likewise! I will be on here and there when I can, so hope to see more of your pictures! 🙂

      Reply

  17. I bet countless soldiers lived through this kind of experience – unable to speak or move, remembering the horrors of war and their bravery in it. Nicely done.

    Reply

  18. Meaningful poem of an old soldier dying with sounds of ‘beeps and drones,’ a sad ending for many old, both soldiers and others, timelines never known.

    Reply

    • It is the sad truth. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts. Happy Holidays to you and yours!

      Reply

  23. How heartbreaking that no one was there with him at the end. One can only hope that in the years between the war and his old age he felt that his sacrifices were both appreciated and worthwhile. Thank you for this beautifully written piece, M.B. — and happy New Year, too.

    Reply

    • A very happy new year to you as well! Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts – been loving all the wonderful pics on your blog!

      Reply

  26. Very well expressed. What pain the war generations must have carried with them from their battle zones.

    Reply

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Quotes of the Week

“I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but that, like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read; but even granting that they will, their influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. Even then they cannot be so universally known nor so vividly felt as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a brother, a living history was to be found in every family – a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related – a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned. But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but what invading foreman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done – the leveling of its walls. They are gone. They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-restless hurricane has swept over them, and left only here and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs a few more ruder storms, then to sink and be no more. They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and now that they have crumbled away that temple must fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason.”
-Abraham Lincoln

M.B. HENRY

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