Memorial Day

This year marks the 75th Anniversary of the end of World War II. 405,399 Americans died in that war.

     "Vale" From Carthage
           (Spring 1944)

by Peter Viereck, July 1947

I, now at Carthage.  He, shot dead at Rome
Shipmates last May.  “And what if one of us,”
I asked last May, in fun, in gentleness,
“Wears doom, like dungarees, and doesn’t know?
He laughed, "Not see Times Square again?"  The foam,
Feathering across that deck a year ago,
Swept those five words--like seeds--beyond the seas
       Into his future.  There they grew like trees,
       And as he passed them there next spring, they spread
       Across his road of fire their sudden shade.
Though he had always scraped his mess-kit pure
And polished piously his barracks floor,
Though all his buttons glowed like cloudless moons
To plead for him in G.I. orisons,
No furlough fluttered from the sky.  He will
Not see Times Square--he will not see--he will
Not see Times
                       change; at Carthage (while my friend,
Living those words at Rome, screamed in the end)
I saw an ancient Roman's tomb and read
"Vale" in stone.  Here two wars mix their dead:   
        Roman, my shipmate's dream walks hand in hand
        With yours tonight ("New York again" and "Rome"),
         Like widowed sisters bearing water home
         On tired heads through hot Tunisian sand