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A Veteran's Manifesto (poem)

By Paul Hellweg

It don't mean nothin'

That's what we told ourselves
after some of us had died
(or maybe it was only a single friend
who lay mangled and lifeless).
We said it too when
innocents were killed,
our own flesh was rendered, or
we had just witnessed
too many human beings
wasted
by our superior firepower.

It don't mean nothin'

We spoke those words
to avoid our own pain.
We spoke those words because
the horror we experienced
placed our very souls at risk, and
to reclaim our destiny,
we veterans must tell the world
what we have seen.
Kurtz understood,
like him, we have terrible knowledge,
but unlike him,
we won't let it possess us,
we will not go insane,
we will not commit suicide, and
we will not let these words,
It don't mean nothin,
become our epitaph.

- Paul Hellweg