I Died
contributed by
Thomas R. Fasulo, USMC
I died
... at Bunker Hill. Grapeshot tore through my body at
New Orleans. Crushing hooves with riders as swirls of
blue and gray ... and red ... crashed down upon me in
strange-sounding places like Chickamauga, Antietam, and
Shiloh.
The heat and swamp sucked at my last moments in the wilds
of Cuba. A green fog of poisonous gas slithered over the
side and into my trench, where water stood mixed with
slime and blood.
I lay face down in fetid pools clogged with jungle vines,
felt the hot sands of Africa burning through my back,
lay with cold cheek against wet beach sand and fell from
gingerbread doorways into cobblestone streets. I gasped
for air and breathed fire and oily water.
Snow clung to my lashes and ice formed at the corners
of my mouth as a tiny wisp of steam wafted from the crimson
flow of life out of my ears and stomach.
As I fell forward, I felt the jagged pain of bamboo beneath
the water tearing at my flesh.
I fought and died when I didn't know why. I was killed
before I was old enough to vote. I never knew the pleasure
of savoring the memories that come with old age. I left
mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, children and sweethearts
to weep after me. I lay where names and landscapes and
faces were all foreign to me. To this day, no one knows
where the earth swallowed me.
I was called wop, nigger, dago, spic, kike, honky, and
mic. I was tall and short and thin and heavy and young
and old and cheerful and sad. I was a shop steward, an
insurance agent, a writer, an orange picker, and the head
of a grocery chain stretching from Baltimore to St. Louis.
I lived around the corner, up the street, next door,
over the garage, across the tracks, on the hill and out
of a suitcase. I came from a family farm, college campus,
factory, new-car agency, and Broadway.
I died that we would remain free, that liberty would
not perish, that women and children would be safe from
terror, that my home would be protected, that an idea
would be proven right, that my friend might live, that
people back home could make overtime in the plants, and
that a sagging economy might be helped.
Sometimes I served my country, sometimes my ideals and
sometimes my own ego.
But I served.
On Veteran's Day, I hope you pause for a few moments
to think on these things. You are still free to
think ... and speak ... and publish whatever you wish
because I gave the most I had ... my all.
Some of you have known some of my pain, my tears, and
the sickness of soul for the waste of human life.
Yet, the giving of my life was not wasted. For perhaps
somehow, in some way, people will do something to end
my dying.
My death has extended the time given you to do that something.
After the next war there may be no one left to honor
the dead.
...copied from an old newspaper clipping I found.
Thomas R. Fasulo, currently a Private in the
13th Indiana Volunteers / 8th Florida Volunteers,
once an officer in the United States Marine Corps,
and a Viet Nam veteran
