In Viet Nam
(if you lived)
it meant
365 days.

So wrong.

Coming home
began the real tour.

Each day an unseen mine,
a ****** sighting you in,
punji sticks along the trail,
choppers falling and burning.

All have their
civilian counterparts.

The worries of
the day to day
far exceed the
perils of war.

What they have
in common is
the ever present
possibility of
unseen death.

365 days was nothing.

Man, woman or child:
living your life is
the real Tour of Duty.

   ~mce