i found his name on the Wall

i was much older

than when we had laughed on the beach

cruised the strip in his old MG

and were shipmates crossing the Pacific

before he had flown his chopper

into some nameless Vietnamese hillside

when i found his name in the book i cried

without shame

then led my young son to his place on the Wall

where i rubbed his name into paper

and tried to explain who we had been

and what had happened

i can still see him

fifty years later

as if it were yesterday

10/26/18 LV
Copyright Michael Douglas Scott