A Poem From My Friend Rick

I have been visiting my friend Rick for the past few days. We both served in the same company while in Vietnam during 1967. This evening Rick brought out his "Vietnam Box," a box with a few memento's of his year in war. This poem was in the box, which he had not opened for more than ten years. He wrote it sometime before June 19, 1967, the day of our battalion's most disastrous battle. He knows that he wrote this poem before that day because after the battle he could not write and remembers little of the rest of his year at war.

For Love of God and Nation?

Why me? What did I do?
I gave no one cause to
even feel blue.

Yet now I must go,
thru the muck and the mire
and lord help my soul,
if I ever should tire
for this is a war
such as never before
where no man can rest
lest the enemy come out best
for tho they're farmers by day
come night they're away
to bring havoc on men
that could be my kin

Why me? What did I say?
Why did my neighbors give me away?
To sweat and to toil
on the enemy soil
To fight for my life
For the love of my wife.

They say for the love of God and my nation
I must go through hell and damnation
And try tho I may
I can't get away

Why Me?