By Tara Flaherty Guy
At the veteran’s hospital, old soldiers wear their lost youth in a fashion ensemble that includes white hair and ball caps emblazoned with their unit names: the 11th Cavalry, the 101st Airborne, the 9th Infantry, the 3rd Marines.
One bent figure, a once-upright soldier who quick-marched, shambles now and stutter-steps. Gone his lithe grace, like the others…their youthful leap onto tracks and transports, gangplanks and bomber wings, their supple slide down through slender hatches. Liminal places, lost names pronounced in a vanished tongue—Xuân L?c, Bien Hoa, Saigon.
I hear silent songs of sorrow echoing through this temple of loss.
Excellent piece, so much said in so few words.
Captured in such an excellent illustration of showing not telling
Good piece. Very visual and real.
Where old warriors go to die . . . Tara, I could see these vets in your clear and beautiful writing. The way the memory of their battles lives on. Thank you.
You paint a true picture.