Curtis d bennett biography sampler

Politicians celebrating this D-Day invasion may have used it to imply merit for for war in general but especially their illegal, disastrous, unjustified invasion of Iraq. Curt's own reflection on his war experience may have led him to overlook the necessity and historic importance of the D-Day invasion so this is a highly personal response, not to the D-Day Landings themselves but to the situation of veterans returning to the scenes of their war experience.

Curt is not concerned in this poem with the importance, heroism and justification for this biggest invasion in history. Frail, old men with weathered hands stand, Alone, lost on the wide sandy beaches, Each turning back his rusty mind clock Piercing the veil of memories When they were young, anxious and terrified, Boy-soldiers in battle fighting for their lives, Experiencing the gamut of fear and death Watching friends died horribly, Scarring their young minds forever.

Blue beaches murmur waves Splashing old, rusted war remnants. A sea bird flaps wet beaches Where the sea swells and crashes gently on wet sand, Retreating back erasing all footprints. The men stare the distance, At blurred memories through tears. Trickling down their cheeks dripping softly, To merge with the sea like before. They came to say good-bye to their friends, To a confused past which has no answers.

The graveyard crosses watch in stony silence, Stoically from tree shadows on soft meadows, In eternal military formation fronted by small, flags, Wind-shivering in the hush of silence. Marching the stillness in quiet precision Protecting the young soldiers buried there, Frozen in time and death The old veterans stand awkward, unsure with the dead.

Experiencing those familiar, dreaded, sick feelings Of remorse, regret, blame, and fault for what happened To their generation who gave so much for their country. They have gathered one final time To share history, blame and guilt for all eternity Banding together as one, they embrace the moment, Experiencing once more, this terrible place of memories.

And the same salt sea air, still blows up from the beach Once inhaled in panic by all the young fighting men Mired in the beach mud conducting the senseless slaughter of children, Trapped forever in the obscenity and vulgarity of war, The pain returns for a moment, overwhelming them, It hangs suspended, as real as yesterday, then drifts away and mellows away.

Now time, history, and denial blessedly blur the horror and inhumanity Of what they did; of what was done to them. The War President from America Mounts the podiums to prattle the virtues of war, Attempting to rewrite history, to deny war's reality, He exploits the moment for selfish means, To justify his war as a noble cause, ignoring its brutality, Thoughtlessly attempting to validate, substantiate, and authenticate.

War's vicious crimes against civilization Turning the senseless slaughter of innocents Into a righteous cause, to be proud of and condone. Turning war into a sound-bite of empty words Of praise, blessing, glory, and accomplishment. Something to be proud of, to revel in, To relish with sacred, biblical rhetoric From a shallow, self-centered political opportunist.

Whose meanings and oratory become quickly lost, His words floating away with the wind, out of relevance, out of touch Out of context, drifting, beyond the restive crowds. To fall useless and disappear, in the cold, impassionate mud. Falling deaf on the ears of the dead warriors The ultimate, wasted sacrifice, from another curtis d bennett biography sampler.

It is at this moment, the old veterans Eyes mist up, overflow, and tears flow shamelessly. As they at last comprehend all their sacrifice, all their pain, All their sorrow, all their suffering, all the death, Did not change or alter a thing, was not a lesson learned Nor an experience not to be repeated. Realizing their friend's painful, brutal, ultimate sacrifice Was only a necessary evil of Mankind's political process Which has never changed, and never will, For each generation brings anew to the world Its own self-styled madness of universal death, tragedy and suffering, In wars to be fought by the young, bright-eyed children of the world Unknowingly raised as sacrificial lambs of slaughter, To be killed and gone forever, for nothing.

That is why, all Veterans cry. In this hallowed place of the dead The lonely graves of war's youthful victims Who died for a thought, an idea, for a cause Promulgated by selfish, insane men in power These war graves and cemeteries are Harbingers Of the eternal, mindless death cycle of war. Young men killed by politicians' words and mindless acts, Their promise and existence forever ended too soon.

Now, forever sleep beneath the green muffled grass Sharing the earth with the youth and victims of past wars, Too numerous to count, too numbing to contemplate, The dead, as powerless and impotent as the now living To change or alter, or detour the inexorable course of madmen, They patiently wait for the next generation to join them.

Curtis d bennett biography sampler: Dr. Curtis Garner is a licensed

War drags men to the very edge Where they shut completely down All emotion, all caring, all feeling, Just to survive the experience. Old men in young boys' bodies Who will never be quite the same. For they can never, ever, Come all the way back. Others topple over the edge, To remain lost there…forever. Curtis D Bennett. As the endless war in Afghanistan drags on and on, Slowly emerging are tales of war atrocities by Americans, By men in combat whose job is to kill other human beings, And when they do, they tend to celebrate being alive, Celebrate the enemy they have just killed as now dead.

In Afghanistan other photos emerged of American snipers Pissing on the bodies of the dead enemy of Al Qaeda, Others posing with enemy dead beneath German SS flags, The latest photos show Americans holding up body-parts Of dead the newly dead Afghanistan suicide bombers, Who were trying to kill them and dying in their effort. And who can forget the American Sergeant Robert Bales On his 4th tour of combat, despite suffering head wounds, Who mercilessly went out in the middle of the night, To gun down 17 Afghanistan women and children, In the dead of night As long as American troops are forced into multiple tours, Multiple atrocities will continue Which are given lip service by the Military Leaders, But on the ground, these go out the window; are disregarded.

Those who fight return from war weary, worn out, empty, Tired, and drained from an endless year of being on the edge. This takes its toll, as every minute of every day one is guarded; Suspicious, tense, walking a very fine line, a balancing act, Knowing you can easily die at any time, at any place, And never, even, see it coming! One is on the precipice; cautious, suspicious of everything, Bringing home the costly survival skills they learned In combat, skills, skills, which kept them alive.

One is never quite the same after a year at war One returns from war In war, one loses their innocence, their beliefs, The National myths and traditions, which sent them to war, Have proved false and misleading, for war has no glory, The people they were sent to help are trying to kill them, And do, as suddenly friends and buddies die indiscriminately; They are there one moment, the next, they are chunks of meat Bloody and scattered across the earth in pieces It is an event no one can train for; no one can prepare for, As deep inside you realize it is luck; it may just as well been you Who got caught, chewed up and spit out dead You would have been the one who died for what, and why?

And therein is the problem, the crisis, the predicament. Something nobody seems to understand or can comprehend As to why there are such problems for returning veterans, Why they have changed their mindset; have become strangers, Are so hard and difficult to deal with, have changed drastically, Are no longer who they used to be; whom they will never be!

Can never again be the person they were All the things our songs sing about Whose sad death was not heroic; not patriotic, not glorious Rather a brutal snapshot of the horrors of war and dying And your predominant feeling is strangely one of gladness, A feeling of sick, jumbled, overwhelming relief It was he, not you, who was killed and lying alone in the gore.

And for that, you will forever deal with the guilt of being alive! All who go to war return back home changed, Come back different; will never be the same. Dreams, which kept one going, to get through one more day, Which helped them make it through, just one more night! A small graveyard sits on the slight hill Overlooking the fields and valley below, Watching the Kansas River, hidden in the trees, Sparkle occasionally in the afternoon sun.

A single, dirt road leads off the main highway, And climbs through the burial plots. Upwards towards the high fence at the end, Then curves around and circles the gravestones, Of various sizes, shapes and colors, marking the dead. It is quiet and peaceful, here, where sleep the dead, Just the murmur of the constant, shuffling winds, The faraway sound of a curtis d bennett biography sampler train clacking tracks Echoes along the distant horizon.

There is one grey, flat stone, somewhat apart, Which has been unattended for years, As tall grasses surround it, the chiseled name Fading with the aging of the stone by weather. There is a wooden stick in the ground beside the stone, Which once held a small American flag. The flag, this man went to war for, This flag, this man went half way around the world for, The flag, this man fought for in a foreign land, The flag this man died defending, Because it was his patriotic duty.

The flag, his family was given at the gravesite, To honor his death, his ultimate sacrifice. The winds and the weather have taken their toll, The plastic red, white, and blue colors of the flag, Has systematically been dismantled by the elements. Now, there is only a weathered, round stick with tatters Still standing proud in the earth by the grave, As a reminder of who this man was…a veteran.

Whatever happened to his family, who once loved him? To his parents, who raised him to be a good citizen? To his brothers and sisters, who ran and played with him? Where is his wife now, his children, his relatives? Or the country he died for? All no longer seem to care. For once, a man dies in combat, of what use is he? What use is he now to anyone, or anything?

Or does it even matter anymore? An American tradition is honoring our military dead, Those who gave their lives in battle On behalf of their country who asked them To defend and fight for it; to die for it. The question remains, was it worth the cost? Is it worth young people dying for today? And ten, twenty years from now, what is the difference, if any?

Or perhaps it is because we Americans love war, It seems we have been in a constant state of war Since we fought for our own independence. What is the base line? Easy, Americans die in them; killed in the name of America, No matter how we would like to disguise them It comes down to people with weapons killing the other, You cannot have war without casualties; without dead people.

Until no one knows, and nobody even cares who they were, They have become a fading, forgotten name on a tombstone, By an old, stick in the ground, whose flag is long gone As is the memory of the man, the son, the soldier The one who is now, but a fading memory to all; The one who selflessly gave his only life, for his country. I come today to speak to you About the past and of the future.

To talk to you of war and of peace. Once I was like you Sitting in a classroom Pondering unanswerable questions With youthful confidence and strength, My belief based on innocence, My trust based on inexperience, And truth was to seek curtis d bennett biography sampler. My generation has come and gone To be replaced by yours. And all the older adults; the old farts Were to be simply tolerated, Friendly, but harmless, They were just I was a part of the war in Vietnam, I went as an eager curious young man And came back home, jaded and weary For I learned more that one year Than most will ever learn in a lifetime.

I saw reality, and it was ugly, I experienced truth, and it was bitter. They recount the battles fought, Of victories won; of campaigns lost, Of dollars spent and divisive politics, Of avoidable mistakes and misjudgements Of indecisive, groping, failing White Houses; Of angry, massive demonstrations and riots in the streets. The world of Academia sometimes turns sterile, And sometimes, conveniently leaves out the human element; Forgets and omits, the personal tragedy.

Curtis d bennett biography sampler: And I'm Chris Raschka, who illustrated

Overlooks pain, suffering, and death. Does not acknowledge, the human condition. They simply reduce the Vietnam War, and other wars Into just another short, inconsequential chapter of America, A sordid, bitter, embarrassing experience; best forgotten. Some books even attempt to rewrite history, Turning Vietnam, into a noble, righteous cause.

It was the common, ordinary children of America, The kid next door, down the block, around the corner, The ones you went to school with, went to church with. They were the ones who fought and died in Vietnam, It was the nineteen-year-old frightened, scared kid Whose blood soaked into the red mud. He was the acceptable casualty, The expendable youth, the body count.

He, this country could afford, to lose. These children had hopes and dreams, They did not want to die in a faraway land! They had futures, possibilities, all taken away. They had their youth and health. While others evaded, avoided, or fled, These were drafted and sent to war. There is another story of Vietnam Which you can read; experience personally In your quest for truth and reality.

And in these places is where you will find The sombre, tragic, sober realities of war. While the survivors of that terrible experience Returned home, searching to regain their lost humanity. For in war, men lose their souls! For what they do against their fellow man Has no definition, no rhyme, no reason! Where the death of friends and trusted comrades Ultimately has no meaning, no context it can be put into, No manner it can be understood and rationalized, No reason that can ever explain why them and not you?

And these survivors of war returned home searching For those answers and for what they had lost in war. But this loss, this emptiness, this frustration, this searching, Finds no answers, no solutions, no understanding, No justification, no meaning, no sense.

Curtis d bennett biography sampler: The Modern Biographical Files are located

The Vietnam veteran returned home, homeless, Rejected, outcast, despised, ostracized. By his own country, by the very people he used to know, As he now, personally carries the blame for his war, As the atrocities and horrors congruent of every war, Were forever misplaced directly on his young weary shoulders. Today you, another generation of Americans Are sitting in these same college classrooms Asking the same, unanswerable questions.

Probing for curtises d bennett biography sampler of knowledge, for learning. I am here today as one of many Vietnam veterans Who has experienced combat, Who has killed for his country, Who has seen his countrymen killed. I am a survivor and learned too much About war, Government, human nature and life. I will answer your questions as honestly As I possibly can, just bear with me, As I continue, the search…for my soul!

Those returning from war are changed, They are different; they are not the same. But it is irrelevant, not meaningful, To pick sides and fight about war experience, To defend and justify your life experience. Those veterans returning from war Do not want to go to another one, Do not want their children to fight one. Do not want their country ever involved in war again!

Roughly, about On schedule, the big, heavy planes slide in Just above the treetops at feet, Spraying down long, twisting fine wide, wet sheets Of orangey, gossamer, drifting chemicals floating down. There, soon, all the green, thick leaves die and fall away, From the giant trees that also, will soon die! The birds stop singing, for they too are dying, Even the air is still, for nothing grows anymore, Where the deadly, killing American poison falls.

One exception is found in newborn, village babies, Who grow grotesque, deformities, and misshapen tumors. Far high above, cloud armies pause, To paint the land, in shadowed gauze. The clear blue air in silence sings Where eagles dream on mighty wings. A ghostly bugle calls the role, Its haunting notes caress the knoll And echoes somber over fields of green Where warriors sleep their endless dream.

White markers, march in rank and file To hold the stillness, for a while. My brothers, sleep beneath this grass With youthful comrades from the past. And all their sacrifice…for naught! The names of the men, who fought and died, Will be remembered far longer, by far more, Than those who fought and somehow survived. It is a truly remarkable memorial to their memory.

Yet today there is still not one compelling answer, Nor explanation from the Government that sent them As to why these names are today, inscribed on this wall; Why they died and what they died for? Even today there is no real reason; no bona fide answer. Sadder yet, deep down within the soul; Within the gut of Americans of that generation Is the well-known hard, undeniable reality Their deaths did not really change, a single thing.

Prior to America starting its next irresponsible war, Leaders in the White House and members of Congress Perhaps should stroll down this path, To visit old friends on the wall; Perhaps to explain to them, somehow, in some way Why they soon, will be having some new company. Although Veterans may survive war, they are still victims; All Veterans will always be affected by the war experience; All, will never, ever Each, struck down in the prime of life In a war which was so unnecessary.

A war, which settled nothing; proved nothing, Except Governments lie and deceive their people; That most, if not all Politicians But each of those 58, casualties, Had a family; friends and buddies who knew them, People who were with them when they died, When they were medivaced out To disappear into the distance of deep sky, Never to be heard of again as they vanished, Often leaving good friends behind, Wondering, if they made it through, If they somehow survived and lived, Somehow, were still around and doing well.

For many of their surviving friends, Who loaded them into the choppers, These questions, thoughts, and unresolved questions, Were not addressed; answers, not even pursued. This way, they could keep their friend alive, Would not have to face his death; rather could avoid it, For in their minds this would keep them alive, Not have to face the trauma, sorrow, and cruel reality, They were perhaps dead and gone forever.

In the years following the war, Survivors picked up their lives again, Went back to their families and jobs, Went back to school, back into society, Assimilating once more, back into America. Leaving Vietnam behind; leaving the war behind. But keeping the unresolved questions of their friends, Tucked away into a distant corner of our minds, Where they were safe forever from reality, Where they would remain as we wished them to be, Where we would not have to face their deaths, A place where we could keep them well and alive forever.

An experience, never forgotten, always remembered, It never ever truly leaves one This unseen, unrecognized trauma of the mind, Has been concealed, buried, tucked away, To a place they never want to visit again, Of an experience they never want to go through, Of a memory so hard to accept, to realize, Where it remains throughout their life, Never completely gone; never completely forgotten.

There is a black wall in Washington, The Vietnam Memorial Wall,; a national monument, And on that black granite wall are inscribed The names of those who were killed in Vietnam, Some medivaced out still alive; some dead and others dying. But it was the last and only memory to those left behind, Those still in the field to remember of them, Looking up at the hazy, yellow skies of Vietnam, Gradually becoming smaller and smaller, Watching them disappear forever, Away into the deep, Asian sky forever.

When you visit the wall, you will see Vietnam Vets, Reaching slowly out to the wall with their hands. To gently touch the name of their friend This is their way of saying good-bye, their final farewell, Which has been missing for the past half century. Today, they have finally come to this black wall For resolution, for closure, and for absolution.

For their feelings of guilt for surviving; For their feelings of loss of their friends; For their reluctant recalling of a curtis d bennett biography sampler, brutal war In their remembrance of their long ago, lost youth. For all these years, they have carried their guilt, They have borne their silent sadness, They have carried these memories with them, Yet, have stoically endured and maintained.

And now at last, it is time to resolve these issues, To address them directly; honestly, and then let them go. A time to finally forgive oneself, and forgive your friend, For dying on you that dreadful day…so long ago. As the old veteran reaches out his finger, To trace the etched name on the wall of his friend, There is transference of energy, a connection.

A moment of silent communication with old friends, Whose engraved names are the only memories left. A time to release all of those repressed emotions, The hiding of facts; the denial of their death, All of those terrible secrets hidden for so long. The negativity of energy dormant for so long, Can at last be transferred for the last time From the survivors mind, to the name carved in stone, Back to their friend one last time as they say farewell, One last time to be with them in thought and prayer, To be with them in spirit and one last time, to share.

The wall is their place of remembrance, of sorrow, Of a final personal farewell ceremony To honor the ultimate sacrifice made, By those who died for their country. For those who never had the chance, To live a real life, they were all cut down, Without any chance at all to live a life. Alongside the bottom are bouquets of flowers, Placed there by those who came for closure, Flowers for all the names on the wall; Flowers for all the soldiers, long time passing.