The Veteran

Lying in his bed a tremble from drafts in the night

He remembers the mournful call of a lone bugler

And Sam, Johnny, Nicky and Pete, their laughter

Lighting a tiny corner of a life he will never forget.

...

He shivers at the bitter memories of Bastogne at Christmas

And the bodies at Malmedy, Büllingen and Baugnez where

The Waffen SS left them to lie in the cold winter snows

For no prisoners did their swift columns keep.

...

He remembers tears of relief shed when the skies filled

With B17s and 24s instead of clouds and dropped glorious food,

Medicine and weapons to hold the line and the Third Army's

Tanks with the clak, clak, clak of their tread breaking the siege.

...

The next day Nicky somehow found a cake and poked

A flare in it sparkling furiously like the Fourth of July,

They all laughed wildly, December Twenty-seventh,

Still his favorite birthday, a man of twenty tender years.

...

In Alsace Pete fell on a German grenade, Johnny losing

A leg to a mine. And that funny, smart-ass Nicky and loyal

Sam died of wounds in the Ruhr Valley leaving him alone

To snow-capped glory when they captured Hitler's retreat.

...

For the 101st the war ended in Berchtesgaden, but for him

It still rages on in the brokenness of an old man's dreams.

In his memory Nicky, Sam and Pete are forever young, and

Johnny dead twenty years, the loss of his last true friend.

...

In a month and a half, if he lives, family will gather to

Fete him on his one hundredth birthday, but now his

Only wish that they had all made it home hale and whole,

Together growing old to share the best stories of their lives.