When you see it,it is the very worst of things to see in the world, because it is on the face of a human being subjected to the very highest form of human insanity.
No cry is louder, regardless of sound, or less heard. No face is more descriptive than this man, but by and large unnoticed.
Or even deeper, than that of a young woman. They have been eviscerated of their souls regardless of any physical injuries.
They will never recover. Like those of us who visited the sunny shores of Southeast Asia in the sixties and early seventies.
Many have seen the many good movies about Vietnam. One that sticks in my mind along with "Hamburger Hill," is "Platoon."
The largest portion of the score of music for the film was that of Samuel Barber.
But one scene in particular, perhaps only to me, is the most poignant.
It's the one where the newbie's were offloading a C-130 at Tan Son Nhut Air base and the face of one soldier leaving as the newbie's were arriving.
A blank stare. Nothing more.
In reality, no one came back. I didn't either. Like most of the soldiers, perhaps more accurately than thought once, for whatever reason, returned as ghosts. Wrecked relationships, divorces, maimed, addicted to drugs and alcohol, or both.
Dead none the less. Many worked their asses to the hole trying to fit into a society that had no means whatever to absorb such casualties.
So we must, therefore count them among the dead. Many still are around in some form today.
The Korean war was too close to WWII to change the already war hardened soldiers a great deal. They received a star on their Combat Infantryman's Badge.
Perhaps the most coveted decoration of the war. If any decorations were desired at all.
Not Bronze Stars, as handed out to Jessica Lynch for spending some ten days on her cute ass for an injured ankle.
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