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nopeasforever

Alice Said





“I didn’t want to remember you that way.”

She said but how could she know?

She had put me on that plane years ago

And not seen me in decades


Yes the war had changed me

Made me more serious

Made me more cautious

And yet made me adventurous


Some of the changes that dogged me

Were visited upon my family for years

Unconsciously, unknowingly

But my family had to bear them nonetheless


Some of the changes were good

Able to withstand my efforts to extinguish them

Other changes were not recognized until much later

Those come out in who I am today


She would never completely remember me for how I was

She could mostly recognize me from what I am

Maybe she saw that in me before

Maybe it took a war for me to see it in myself


So much has gone on in my life since

So much in hers also

Yet today, we recognize each other for what we were

And for what we have become.


(Alice is my friend of 50 years who put me on the plane to the Vietnam War so many decades ago. Picture of me in Vietnam, 1972)

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