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By Ronald Nash

VA Medical Center--Cincinnati, OH

Mortar fire explodes in my mind;

Napalm blisters my senses.

A time machine within hurls me

back to another place, a foreign land.

Anguished screams from the maimed

and dying permeate my very being.

Senseless death and destruction.

WHY?

You said it was not war.

I think you called it, “Conflict,”

marching,

as you burned “Old Glory” to the ground.

Reality remains unchanged.

What was not called war

is now and evermore…

abiding inside of me.

Author's Note: Therapeutic Writers Group, Cincinnati VA Medical Center Facilitator.