tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16095608.post4159495307583109881..comments2023-10-10T05:45:24.878-07:00Comments on The Data Port: Ken Burns-- The WarArt Jacobsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14354951975503040483noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16095608.post-49168821936157251602007-11-16T09:48:00.000-07:002007-11-16T09:48:00.000-07:00THE BALLAD OF THE MAN HE KILLEDWatching The War on...THE BALLAD OF THE MAN HE KILLED<BR/><BR/>Watching The War on my TV<BR/>Brings to my recollection<BR/>So many thoughts--no "Greatest," we<BR/>Were but, per my reflection,<BR/><BR/>A decent ordinary folk,<BR/>Hard-working, loyal, true,<BR/>As strove to beat the Nazi yoke<BR/>With our Red, White and Blue.<BR/><BR/>In those days there was more respect<BR/>For what we call Old Glory,<BR/>The flag, her rituals to protect,<BR/>But that is not my story.<BR/><BR/>The show reveals exciting times,<BR/>As caught up in the crush<BR/>Of swift events, all nickels, dimes<BR/>Combined to help the push.<BR/><BR/>That was before I was called up,<BR/>And I was glad to go--<BR/>Rejected twice, I didn´t stop,<BR/>They took me even so.<BR/><BR/>No, I was not a pilot on<BR/>A carrier running sorties--<BR/>That was my brother--a young man,<BR/>Those were the Nineteen-Forties.<BR/><BR/>I was what you would call today<BR/>A common foxhole grunt,<BR/>No "Greatest Generation," say<BR/>Whatever you may want.<BR/><BR/>Those fellows that I served with were<BR/>An upright bunch of boys,<BR/>Nor don´t call me an officer,<BR/>However fate deploys.<BR/><BR/>It´s sixty years and more since then,<BR/>But I can plainly see<BR/>Faces I´ll never meet again<BR/>Save in eternity.<BR/><BR/>There was a lot of memories<BR/>About the times and all,<BR/>And all of these, so the TV´s<BR/>Brought back, and I recall--<BR/><BR/>But that, of all the things I want<BR/>To tell you--not the times--<BR/>They are not what´s significant,<BR/>The nickels and the dimes:<BR/><BR/>The dances, the Glenn Miller band<BR/>The TV can recount,<BR/>But time moves on, and with its hand<BR/>Sweeps off a large amount.<BR/><BR/>That´s why the story that I have<BR/>To tell you is important,<BR/>For I was not heroic, brave,<BR/>Or saved by prescient portent--<BR/><BR/>I saw enough of death and all,<BR/>Yet some of us survived,<BR/>As to old men death comes to call,<BR/>The lives that we have lived<BR/><BR/>Gradually leaving little trace<BR/>Except for TV shows--<BR/>Alas, goes on the human race<BR/>Perpetuating woes.<BR/><BR/>Good friends I had that died, of course,<BR/>And I´ll be glad to join them,<BR/>But there´s a vision so much worse<BR/>I have--I can´t restrain them,<BR/><BR/>These tears you see, if not profuse<BR/>(I weep them every day),<BR/>Because in war I find no use<BR/>No matter what fools say.<BR/><BR/>O, I believe we had to keep<BR/>Hitler from taking over,<BR/>But victory yet wasn´t cheap;<BR/>Some lucky ones recover.<BR/><BR/>Hitler was evil; but look what<BR/>Occurred once he was gone--<BR/>Stalin--an ideological cut<BR/>And paste enforced by gun.<BR/><BR/>No, why I cry, you understand,<BR/>And why I have to tell,<BR/>You won´t find on TV--no grand<BR/>Battle proudly befell.<BR/><BR/>It was a lot of chaos as<BR/>They make the movies now,<BR/>While what I saw shall never pass<BR/>Till heaven may allow--<BR/><BR/>It is a memory recurrent<BR/>Oppresses in my dreams,<BR/>For which I have found no deterrent<BR/>And I wake up with screams.<BR/><BR/>All was explosions; in the air<BR/>A smoke so thick to clot,<BR/>And all was darkness everywhere,<BR/>And I myself had got<BR/><BR/>A something sticking in my leg,<BR/>I couldn´t hardly move,<BR/>The dead lay scattered--and I beg<BR/>God´s mercy from above.<BR/><BR/>It was amongst the German forces,<BR/>The soldiers lying dead,<BR/>Reflected light from unknown sources<BR/>Revealed a moving head--<BR/><BR/>At least I thought so: all my boys<BR/>Were either dead or gone,<BR/>While we two, poise to counterpoise<BR/>It seemed were left alone.<BR/><BR/>He crawled or slithered toward me with<BR/>A weapon in his hand--<BR/>This is not some heroic myth,<BR/>Glib authors be ye damned!<BR/><BR/>He was a boy of seventeen,<BR/>Could not have been much older,<BR/>Seen clearly as you here are seen<BR/>And I was his beholder.<BR/><BR/>He must have been good German stock--<BR/>The kind Hitler approved--<BR/>Yet even though I was in shock<BR/>I wish he hadn´t moved.<BR/><BR/>It´s kill or be killed, as you know,<BR/>So as the boy approached,<BR/>Meaning my death--not for dumb show--<BR/>His life away I poached.<BR/><BR/>He was a blond, and handsome kid,<BR/>Yet he meant deadly business--<BR/>In self defense, the act I did<BR/>Did not cause any queasiness--<BR/><BR/>I slept for twenty hours or more<BR/>Straight in the hospital--<BR/>Recovered, to go back to war,<BR/>But that night took its toll.<BR/><BR/>It was a dreamless sleep that first,<BR/>But never any since,<BR/>Nor is it I was specially cursed,<BR/>For which no evidence;<BR/><BR/>But subsequently every night<BR/>(And it is sixty years)<BR/>The visitation comes, the fright,<BR/>The handsome youth appears--<BR/><BR/>And I must shoot him once again--<BR/>It is a horror, horror,<BR/>Sweat covers me: so it has been<BR/>A lifetime, nightly terror:<BR/><BR/>Terror of having killed a boy<BR/>That was so beautiful,<BR/>That never knew life´s later joy:<BR/>I´ve had a life that´s full.<BR/><BR/>As by an accident of fate<BR/>My seed proliferates<BR/>Unto the generations--"great"<BR/>Not nearly, word which grates.<BR/><BR/>So I have even lived to see<BR/>Grandchildren of my own<BR/>Have children; but that German, he--<BR/>That boy--will not have known.<BR/><BR/>All of these things he never had,<BR/>And all I have enjoyed,<BR/>Because of war--all war is bad--<BR/>Because of me destroyed.<BR/><BR/>It was not like an option might<BR/>Present itself to me;<BR/>What I must do I did, that night,<BR/>But so regretably.<BR/><BR/>That´s why I have to talk to you,<BR/>To make you understand:<BR/>My comrades yes were comrades true,<BR/>Camaraderie is grand,<BR/><BR/>And looking back, the times were not<BR/>Without their pleasures even,<BR/>But I recall the man I shot<BR/>So early sent to heaven.<BR/><BR/>Hardly more than a boy, he was,<BR/>And if I had not killed him,<BR/>I would have died; and yet because<BR/>I did, I have instilled him<BR/><BR/>To be a nightly visitor<BR/>Eliciting my tears,<BR/>Shuddered revulsion at the core<BR/>Despite these many years.<BR/><BR/>You fight these further wars today,<BR/>But truly "war is hell,"<BR/>An adage true, so I relay<BR/>What no TV can tell.<BR/><BR/>An old man´s tears have no account<BR/>To any but himself--<BR/>They´ll package, what for some amount<BR/>You may put on your shelf,<BR/><BR/>A video as describing war<BR/>With extra scenes not seen<BR/>On your TV: but war is more<BR/>Than that, as packaged clean.<BR/><BR/>Edited--so you understand--<BR/>The story that is told<BR/>Leaves out the message men are damned<BR/>By what is sold as bold.<BR/><BR/>Historically, so it is an<BR/>Event, if not forgotten,<BR/>Of all events that come to man,<BR/>This visitation rotten,<BR/><BR/>Most horrible and most horrendous,<BR/>Not something to be sought,<BR/>More stupefying than stupendous,<BR/>War and what war has wrought.<BR/><BR/>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com