Tribute to Forgotten Soldiers (original poem)

This is an original poem I wrote back in 2003 (I think?) for a college class. I’d seen the Korean War Memorial during a DC trip in June 2001, and two pictures I’d taken had always stuck with me from that trip. This poem was my attempt to capture the thoughts I had from the memorial; it purposefully doesn’t rhyme. Make sure you see the Korean War Memorial the next time you are in DC. I’m posted this at the request of @ranginui and @shlew after mentioning it on Twitter while I was in DC for the Computers in Libraries conference.

Tribute to Forgotten Soldiers

Near the steps of Abe’s old chair
A group of men stand guard,
Frozen in time as they wait
For orders to fight in a far off land.

 

Stare long enough at one,
And a fog appears—
The poncho he wears
Now fits the scene.

 

He waits for his orders
To come through the radio on his back:
Advance, retreat, hold to the 38th parallel, fire—
Who will not return this day?

 

“Will I be one who dies today?” he wonders.
“What will come out this fog?
My radio is crackling with field reports
As units come under fire.

 

I should be out in the field
Cutting the fall’s crops,
Spending time with my kids—
Not in a land of war.

 

Smells of manure should saturate the air,
As my wife’s breathing lulls me to sleep,
And weaned calves cry out at the barn—
Not the smells and sounds of death from war.

 

Why do we have to police the earth,
Protecting all the nations,
When farmers, clerks, and teenagers
Perish here, in the Land of the Morning Call?”

 

This man may not have agreed with the conflict
And may not have wanted to be there,
But when Uncle Sam said his name,
He answered duty’s call.

 

This soldier and others struggled in fighting
And are remembered in a way,
For their wall and statues can be seen in D.C.,
But who recalls their war?

-Heather Braum, written Fall 2003