35W, 11

Douglas Alan Dugger...
I've seen your name on the Wall.
I feel I somehow know you,
thirty-two years after your fall.

Doc introduced us last year...
your family has shared their stories.
There is timeless love for a young man
who died for America's glory.

Doc was with you then,
on the night you were to die.
When he introduced us at the Wall,
I saw the tears in his eyes.

He then told me the story...
how you somehow seemed to know...
Giving all your things away...
Were you trying to lighten your load?

I found your dad, so they could talk...
they both tried not to cry
(It's just that thing that men do...
hide their feelings deep inside)

All your family misses you...
your dad, your aunt, your brother.
I think the one who missed you most
was your broken-hearted mother.

Your story didn't end that night...
December 31, 1968
Your memory will be kept alive
by all the stories they relate.

Now, it has been twenty-five years
since the day of that war's end...
Alan, I feel a need to tell you
I'd have been proud to call you "friend."

CeCe


Copyright © 2000 by Cecilia Upson Covera, All Rights Reserved


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