Poetry / On the frozen hills of Chosin
I always wondered if anyone cared
If anyone was grateful for the sacrifices made
By men too young to die half a world away
And men too young for coming home afraid
Tormented by the ghosts of battles long since ended
Their wives and children trying to survive one more day
With the walking dead
I think the lucky ones were those who received
Those awful letters in the mail
“We regret to inform you….”
But perhaps their pain is only different.
Fate brought before me a simple letter
From a young Korean boy
Now a grown man and living here
Who wrote these simple words
To the American servicemen who helped his people
“Thank you”
I spilled my tears on that dull newspaper
He touched a hidden place in my locked heart
There was a reason
There were real people
Who were blessed
And gave some odd justification
Is that the right word?
For all the pain that a woman and her children
Endured at the hands of a broken soldier.
I wrote my father
I told him how this simple letter had touched me
How I had always wondered
If anyone was grateful for the sacrifice
That soldiers had made so long ago
Some with their lives
And others with hearts too fragile
For such bloody work.
He’s never written me back
Or mentioned it on the phone
But I understand
It hurts to walk again among the dead
On the frozen hills of Chosin
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i loved the raw emotion laid down here, like you are writing a letter to yourself or just speaking out loud, amplified by the insertion of a question to bring the reader into the story with you on a more intimate level. good jo, keep on writing.
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I could really relate to your poem, how you told of young soilders going off to battle unaware of their minds and souls soon to be broken. That reminded me of my father and how he fought in vietnam, he went off a slender obnoxious 17 year old boy and came back at 21 lost all of his friends including his heart. He never speaks of it, only to boys, never to me, but I know he was hurt leaving their without any familiar faces to hold onto him on the trip back. I loved all of your poem, I don’t usually enjoy poems of war and soilders but your words seem to hit home in a whole hearted way. Thanks
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