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To a Life Unlived
In memory of Paul Edward Allard
11/25/50 – 4/19/69
In the spring of 1969
I was in ninth grade
advanced for my age.
Paul Edward Allard was fighting in Vietnam.
I didn’t know him,
nor did I know any of the soldiers
whose graves I view
as I stand in this cemetery
today, Memorial Day 2010.
In my hand I hold
a bouquet of red roses
and lilies.
Lilies for the dead.
Fields of waving flags
mark the lives of so many.
As I look across the meadow.
I wonder if anyone knows
how many are here.
The fight is over for them.
It ended before they planned.
What is left of their hopes
lies here.
But let us, the survivors not
be overcome.
Whether or not they died nobly
or just as an artifact of violence
they died for something
greater than themselves.
Perhaps they were heroes
righteously storming enemy guns.
Perhaps they just wanted
to do their duty to God and country.
Maybe they were just
poor frightened bastards
unable or unwilling to flee to Canada.
I was never in Vietnam,
never served in the military.
I was in the last year of the lottery.
My number was over 300.
My girlfriend checked.
I was young and felt immortal.
If my number had been called
I would have served.
When you are young
you stand by your ideals.
You stand up for what you believe,
right or wrong,
Through our struggle we learn
that God, if He exists,
may have His own agenda
and not be on our side at all.
You live through pain and fear
not of death, but of life.
Yet you know you are lucky
not to be lying in a green field
with a flag waving over your head.
As the honor guard offers its salute
to the fallen and the bugler blows taps,
I look down on the flowers
on Paul Edward Allard’s grave.
He died April 19, 1969.
My tearful gaze falls
on a group of unopened lilies
in the bouquet and I weep
for his life,
a life that was never lived.
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