Poetry Feature:
'Only the Dead': Vietnam

'Drafted.' That word not heard much anymore.
A war grinding down on the other side of the world.
Got sent to Georgia where no enemy
would ever come ashore. Slogged your way
through groggy heat among the scruffy pines
in soaked-through winter gear -- regulations
stalled the summer change 'til June -- mocked
the mickey-mouseness of it all, fought
fake wars and waited, tallied every day,
cursing bug-thick Georgia. Some went. You stayed.
Did your time. And home. All came home --
some proud, some still defeated. You hear the drone
of cargo planes, with rows of zippered bags,
creased as new and each one neatly tagged.

* . . . have seen the end of war. (Attributed to Plato.)