A Memorial Day Poem by the Editor-in-Chief

D-Day Lessons Learned

"D-Day" Watercolor on Paper
By J. Artemus Gordon

When the gate of the amphibious craft doth fall

Go over the sides not through the opening at all

Where dost thou think they have been training

Their guns all this time in all this waiting?

Toilet paper is but a target white and plain

Hold it not over thy head lest bullets rain

Upon thee. For thus thou wilt be slain

And never wipe thy arse again.

Through the concussion of the din

And muffled horror of thy war within

Captain thou must take command

Should it fall to thee upon the sand.

If shot in thy head let thy helmet take it

Leave it there--do not forsake it!

Take it off and friend thou wilt not make it

Back to see thy home again.

--Steven Wittenberg Gordon, MD

  Former USAF Flight Surgeon

Poet’s Notes:  The D-Day scene from Saving Private Ryan is required viewing in officer training school.  It is considered by the military to be the most realistic depiction of the horrors faced by an invading force ever made.  It may be viewed here (WARNING--the content is graphically violent and not for the faint of heart) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mT3q8tba_lw.

I watched it for the first time in an auditorium filled with newly minted airmen who were, as was I, sporting freshly shaven heads, still not comfortable in our uniforms.  I held back the urge to vomit as I watched the depiction of another group of men sporting freshly shaven heads, many still not comfortable in their uniforms, charging headlong into a nightmare, the only cover their overwhelming numbers--each other.  

I did my best to absorb the lessons I needed to learn from the film.  Four of those lessons are described in my poem, which I dedicate to my fallen brothers and sisters in arms on this Memorial Day.  May their memory be a blessing.