All Comments on 'Going Home'

there is a passion here. i'm glad i read this work of yours.

Captures the essence of war and what it really costs in the end. Thank you.

In my salad days when we were young and stupid, I had just completed a year in RVN and had volunteered to stay for an additional tour of duty there. Don't ask - as I said we were young and stupid. I knew so many guys, myself included, who sometimes concealed getting wounded because they sent you home after the fourth Purple Heart even if you didn't want to go. The reward for volunteering was 30 days of non-chargeable leave, so I had been hanging around the Da Nang airport trying to get a ride back to the land-of-flush-toilets and cold beer for three days without success when I was offered a ride on a C-130 bringing over a hundred of those terrible boxes home for the final time. I have wished so often I had made the decision to wait for another flight because I had terrible dreams every night for the next 5 or 6 years.

I was not there but I was in an army for 11 years so I have empathy. Reading this was like looking at the wall in Washinton. We live in diferent countrys but they were soldiers so we were brothers. Thank you

the ones who didnt come home....hear it like Gabriel. TK U MLJ LV NV

I lost my dad to the war. I couldn't read your poem without thinking of him and shedding a few tears for him. And being inspired by the thought of being his two hands, his heart, his brain. You have done a service to your brethren, Vulcez - well done! Best regards, Average Bear

Beautiful piece. I did not have the pleasure in visiting the RVN as I enlisted a little after the fall of Saigon. My time finally ended following the new year of 2004 caught by two rounds of "Stop loss." I know your scars oh so well. I hope you finally found your way back to the world. Someday I hope to find my way back as well.

Your piece brought back several memories, among which: 1. I returned from my first of three deployments to RVN in a C130 loaded with the coffins whose image you evoke. I was one of only 3 live passengers (excepting crew of course) on a 36 + hours flight across the Pacific. Passengers sat (or lay as I did) in sling seats along the sides of the cargo area facing the "cargo" -- Images of those 36 hours still figure prominently in troubled dreams half a century later. 2. Every once in a while, less often now, I still imagine the sounds and smells of Vietnam. The sound I cannot forget is the sound made by full body bags as they are unceremoniously dumped from a helicopter several feet to the ground one by one. Sorry, there's more; but I just don't want to think about them anymore.

Eloquent, timeless and eternal.

vivid, compassionate, tearful, proud, brave, remembered & honored. Thank you.

I started reading your stories, looked at your bio then read your poem. It touched a place in me I try not to acknowledge but needs to be visited and healed. I totally agree we need to live for them, our brothers who gave everything. Given current circumstances in Afghanistan, I'm wondering if my guys died in vain. Thank you for your courage to remember them and live for them. Peace and light travel with you my brother.

Beautiful poem about soldiers and war, about lost lives and lost dreams, about the present and past, about remembrance and live well... Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings with us.