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Poetry
A Young Veteran
by Raoul Jose Luis-y-Pelly
The years others knew as youth, I spent learning the meaning of death.
The times others spent learning to love, I passed hoping to live through endless nights.
The moments others remember as laughs in classrooms, I remember as terror in the jungle.
The instants of pleasure taken for granted by others, I remember as forgotten hopes – long ago crushed by the reality of war.
The unfulfilled dreams of others are yet to be thought by me since I am in search of my elusive youth, looking for years lost in combat, which are no more – and will never be.
Sgt. Luis-y-Pelly, Raoul Jose
3rd Force Recon. Company, 3rd. Marine Div.
Vietnam, November 10, 1969