Walk in Their Footsteps

Honorific the Grandfather I never knew.
As I read, his diary left to me by his Son, my Father.
His memories of him were all so few.
As he was only four when he was killed in Vietnam.

It seemed like a dramatic cycle of death.
Repeated by my Father, after gun fire took his live in the Gulf War.
Leaving me an orphan at four, with no memories of him except his words of death.

As I read a passage from the diaries of my Grandfather.

“Our base camp at Cu Chi has an odor I’ll never forget.
It’s a combination of red clay, tar, oil, heat and a stench of death.”.

I read the same passage in the last notes of my Father.

“Our base is an eternal pit of Hell with heat manifesting our souls.
With an unbearable magnitude and an eery stench of awaiting death.”

As tears stream down from deep in my heart.
Their words seem to collide my soul, with a burning anger of sadness.

It’s my turn to follow the footsteps of my Father’s.
Longing to break the cycle of death with a story of bravery in life.
But if that is my destiny and calling to bare the cross with my Fathers?
I am not one to question the out comes of life or death.

The only regret I have is not bearing a Son,
to leave my eternal words of death too.
To carry my legacy onto the next generation of Hero’s.

I leave for the journey to honor my Country,
as I fight for our believes to be a free Nation.
In the names of my Father’s and Father’s before them.
I am a Soldier first and a Son second, as I walk the footsteps of my Father’s