Vietnam

Recently, I began to learn about the Vietnam War. Never in my life have I had so much to think about. Even World War II couldn't make me feel the way I feel now. I have read the books, read the stories. Listened to what went on down there in the jungles. I don't even fully understand what or why I feel what I feel. There is just this feeling that is taking over. Its powerful. It makes me think. War isn't so great. Its a terrible thing. Yet the lives so wasted on that land were worth something. They had meaning and something to fulfil. They don't deserve to lie buried on a godforsaken rock to no end. Why did they have to die for nothing? I respect those men. Those who watched their friends die. Those who died along side their friends. Those who lived, who to this day are still haunted by what they saw and did. What they had to come back from. Their wives, their children can't understand. Can't understand why daddy wakes up every night screaming. Or why the tortured faces of the men he killed haunt him every day. His wife will roll over and say, "Its ok honey, the war is over, go back to sleep." But she can't know. The ever present fear of death, lurking in the shadows. Some even return back to Vietnam, searching for something maybe. Perhaps they left part of themselves behind, and they want it back. They might feel connected to the land, no need to live luxury when you have all the land in the world. To just live in. To be free. But they aren't free. Far from it. It makes you think, makes you feel something you can't know. Just something... some kind of.. awe and Inspiration. I feel courageous. I feel, crazy. I want to experience it so I can know...
and there was the photographer who came to the school. showed us pics of Vietnam. what the Kmehr rouge did. Fantastic work. Breath-taking. Damned powerful. Like a nuclear bomb. The stillness, the beauty. Until you realize that you won't survive. The calm before the storm. or like knowing you have cancer, die in 4 months.. so you just have to go and live.
see the world, do stuff. Take in what you can before you become all that which you have attempted to know and understand. Before you fade away and get forgotten. till someone comes and tells your story to the world so the next kid can get inspired. I feel like a million bucks and a piece of shit all at the same time. Brave and scared. Powerless, and hopeless...
and everything..