Raid
The rain came down in buckets,
Upon the midnight jungle floor.
My stalking eyes were fixed,
Upon the guard beside the door.
Inside the hut the VC lay,
In sleep, and homeward dream.
Knowing not that in the rain,
Lurked a Special Forces team.
Hand over mouth to hush his scream,
My blade deeply in his chest.
Blood spattered on my painted face,
I put the hapless guard to rest.
Explosives planted beneath the huts,
For when we make our getaway.
Then off to seek our comrade,
They had captured yesterday.
He was setting in the court yard,
Impelled on a two foot bamboo stake.
He had been there for hours,
Until death gave him a break.
The look was frozen on his face,
Of agonizing and tortured pain.
I could not hold the tears back,
Even now they flow again.
Spawned by despair and hatred,
Sometimes Jekyll turns to Hyde.
Something inside turns to fury,
Brutality sucks away your pride.
We turned the cranks and blew the camp.
No VC troop was spared.
We killed with anything we had,
With rage and no one cared.
But sometimes at night I hear them,
With their pleading and their screams.
They were soldiers and that was war ,But now they haunt me in my dreams.
P.N.
