Memorial Day thoughts

If you are able, save them a place inside of you
and save one backward glance when you are leaving
for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them,
though you may or may not have always.
Take what they have left and what they have taught you
with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes you left behind.

This poem was written by Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, on January 1, 1970 in Dak To, Vietnam. Major O'Donnell was a helicopter commander with the 170th Aviation Company, 17th Aviation Group, 52nd Aviation Batalion, 1st Aviation Brigade. He and his crew were shot down two months later, on 24 March, 1970, while performing an extraction operation. Major O'Donnell's remains were never found.