Veteran's Day Poem by Rodney DeCroo

My father said to me once while drunk
that they'd made him into a Marine at Parris Island.
And that a Marine is a killer.

I knew a lot of killers. I knew them
in living rooms, supermarkets, hardware stores,
schools, churches, taverns and all the daily places.
Few of them had been to prison,
except for the cells behind their eyes
where they served life sentences,
with dead friends and the enemies they'd killed.
Some taught me to play baseball, some taught
Sunday school, some taught me to fight, drink,
smoke cigarettes or chew snuff, to fish,
hunt, sing or shoot pool. Some showed me gentleness,
the value of silence, to use my mind,
to hate no one. Some taught me to fear people
with dark skin or people who worshipped
different gods. Some beat me or did worse things
I haven't learned to talk about.
I knew a lot of killers. They were our fathers,
uncles and grandfathers. They were men
who worked in mines, mills,
barges and railroads. They were
men who never spoke to us
about the killing they were made to do.
Some were men who left their families
to wander from town to town like wild dogs.
Men shot down by other killers
outside liquor stores or banks,
or to slowly die on bar stools
with a drink in their hand-
their names never spoken again at the family table.
I knew a lot of killers. Today, I'm asked
to remember them,
when all they want to do is forget.