Fate Poem by Robert Edgar Burns

I was standing on the bottom rungs
Of the stairway to my plane,
With orders going to Viet Nam
When someone called my name.

A Major came right up to me
Saying there was a big mistake,
There were questions on my physicals,
And this flight I could not take

Other men I joined the Air Force with
Had become some real close friends.
I yelled to them I'd see them soon
And would join them once again.

But later after dark I heard
A knock upon my door.
A Sergeant came to inform me
Of a water crash near the shore.

And so I sought to be released
From my Air Force enlistment then.
I was suffering much and grieving,
Knowing I should have been with them.

But I returned to join the Army.
That memory was in my past.
Years had come and gone by now,
But another knock came like a blast.

Your mother had a heart attack,
And surgery is scheduled soon.
A military flight's not possible,
A civilian one leaves at noon.

It was leaving there from Washington,
I jumped into the transport van.
But in the snow packed icy roads,
We spun off the road overturning then.

I would not make that Florida flight.
Outside it was like a fridge.
Later I learned that plane had crashed
Into the Washington DC bridge.

A future family member
Who worked at the FBI,
Was on that bridge and saw that crash
With her very own horrified eyes.