"Looking Into The Mirror of Death"
By
Captain Michael Davis O'Donnell,
170th AHC, 1 January 1970

If you are able,
save for them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.