As I remember we sang a lot
about tin soldiers even as
our friends and brothers
drew lots to see who would
wade through rice paddies
and not come home
or come home dead inside
I was thirteen the spring
of the Kent State shootings
tin soldiers and Nixon coming
go ahead and hate your neighbor
the image of the girl
with her arms wide open
sticks in my mind
as though I saw her myself
Forty years on I’m not sure
any of us healed or remembered
well but finally on our own
one bloody morning after
another, still looking for
peace but not hard enough
one tin soldier still rides away
Peace,
Milton
Two thoughts on a post that was again so timely for me as I’ve been thinking about my Dad the vet, Memorial Day coming up, the current wars, etc, etc, …
One, there are no tin soldiers. They’re all just flesh and blood.
Two, if you ever visit the “memorial” at Kent State, good luck finding it. I went thirty years ago. It is an envelope sized plaque in the ground underneath a lovely tree. To me, an enigma, much as the idea of a tin soldier.
kait