'Some' Veterans Are So Ungrateful Poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

People who don't know what it is like,
To volunteer and sacrifice one's life...
In a patriotic devotion to fight and protect,
Accustomed liberties and rights...
Without a selfishness but with felt commitment,
Will never come to understand...
Pain inflicted to reminisce,
Is not quite at the top of their priority list!
Not to celebrate or parade.
Or charade with pumped up chests.

Seldom do veterans who have survived fought wars,
Can forget those wounds.
Or companions witnessed to have died to live no more.
Only those excited to fantasize victories,
Are the ones who had not experienced...
The death of close family members or friends,
Honored as 'heros' to cover up and smother kept hypocrisies!
While doing it to portray a valor and bravery,
As if kept memories magically fade and from them go away.
Like those who remain safe to take days off to celebrate.

'We have purchased balloons.
Many church goers and neighbors baked cakes.
And 'still' some veterans are so ungrateful.
Or seem to express appreciation for what we've done.
Especially the ones who make claims,
The Vietnam War Era has left them anguished.
And left them in severe mental pain.'

~Nothing is like the pain I still endure.
I can not describe how I awaken some days,
Shaking and drenched wet with sweat...
Haunted by the college exams and barely passing tests.
And the horrors of this is still etched in my mind,
Each time I am invited to attend a class reunion.~

'You?
My first job interview I shook like a leaf.
To this very day I am left terrorized.
And at 'happy hour',
I can't explain to the bartender...
Why these memories I keep taunt me and wont leave.'

~I hear you.
And one would think after so many years,
Those who served in the military during Vietrnam...
Could at least express 'some' appreciation.
No one has ever celebrated my efforts.
And I wasn't left that devastated,
To find myself homeless, hungry and living on streets.
At least I know how to find a job and keep it.~

Note:
To those who served in the military,
With a dedicating of your lives...
I honor your attempts and efforts made.

Only 'you' and those who have experienced,
What this kind of sacrificial giving is like...
Will always carry the burden of being misunderstood,
By those whose daily lives have been kept fantasized...
To protect with minimal respect shown to you given.

It is the hope that my composition,
'Some' Veterans Are So Ungrateful brings attention...
To a truth too few dare to closely examine.
Whether enlisting to volunteer or recruited,
The young are the ones picked to fight conflicts.
With a doing expected that they 'ALWAYS' win.
As if to meet quotas selling matresses at a discount store!