He waits, silent
clutching his Unit One
Wondering about this time
A flash as a 'copter
drops a flare
And midnight turns to noon
And hell reaches them all
racing forward, past sanity
Insanity calls pushing him forward
Regardless of death
to a fallen friend
~~~
Bullets falling
that scream Die
falling inches away
Working his best
Moving up,
blood racing in his veins
and dropping in a wound
Made hours ago
~~~
He thinks of himself
His sergeant says stop
but he remembers a Creed
Taken years ago
And again moves forward
into hell blood and gun grease
the sound of death
~~~
The words of life
his morphine spent
And his plasma used
Nothing left
but a Creed sounds
in his ears
above 'copters and total hell
Up to a fallen friend
Who looks up to a face of Christ
and smiles
~~~
Bullets shatter the night
Somewhere a mother
perhaps a wife
Thank God for a life
She says a prayer for
an unknown person
who saved his life.
~~~
Yes somewhere, some person
a lone person
Looks upon a lifeless body
Running faster to a calling
Remembering a Creed
Taken years ago
He halts to gaze upon
A corpsman lying still.
~~~

Written by "Doc" Lerp on the back of a C-Rat box in Dec. of 1969  about a friend killed in Vietnam.
Published in the Baltimore, (Maryland) Evening Sun, December 15, 1970

Doc's Lerp's FMF Corpsman Vietnam

Doc Lerp Picture Page

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