Not a Vet

My dad was drafted; never fought. His best story the one about the Lieutenant and the mud pit. It seems this guy was pretty annoying to the privates. They were out camping, practicing being soldiers. One night it rained a lot, a whole lot. The place where they were trying to sleep in tents was very wet. Then of course the alarm sounded. The enemy were attacking. It was time to move fast. The Lieut. burst out of his tent, shouting something that I have, sadly, forgotten. I'm sure it was a lot like "charge!" That's what he said right before he stepped into a foxhole full to the very top with muddy water. It almost sounded like my dad thought that made being drafted worth it. It sure sounded like he thought it made camping in the rain worth it. I'm sure that was true. In later years when we were camping as a family and it rained, it never seemed to bother him at all.

That's what I remember, anyway. That Lieutenant would be nearly 90 now. Wonder if he grew up.

111113

Perelandra Pays Our Debt


sub-light war is hell
times hell itself.
our veterans who made it back,
those few humanomorphs
of all the myriads sent,
blinked at a millennium
that ill-remembered war;
the young travelers were
stone chippers in metropolis,
lobe-fins on a mountaintop--
to assimilate they'd have to die--
we owed them more.

in the end a habitat reserve
was set aside,
for our returning heroes,
it revolved a few hundred kilometers
inside the Dyson sphere,
a matt-black moon.

time dilation left them ill-prepared
for our teratogenic society,
students visited them
in human guise,
and many theses wrote,
till one visitor, a tertiamorph,
fell in young with
a handsome virusiare first class,
she, 26 years young/28 kiloyears old,
could never see her lover's
natal form.

so now we thaw the banks of frozen oldsters,
a few each year,
send them in, sterile,
to keep things interesting,
and mumble thanks when its shadow comes,
to our black soldier moon.



end



I recognize my debt to our veterans. They need more than just this day.

111111

Veterans Day. I am grateful for their sacrifices. I hope their treatment soon will approach what they deserve.