Soldier’s Christmas
written by: Mark Scheel
On December 23—he remembers—
G2 detected a Viet Cong battalion
staging a night river crossing.
The 511th popped flares
and cut them to pieces
with M-60s, artillery and Cobras.
The next day they fished
black-clad bodies from sullied waters,
stretched them in rows.
It was the only way they had
to keep score.
The pall of their work
clung to them like smoke
in the vacuum of the Christmas Day
cease fire. Making their way
to the mess hall,
they sat down in rows
to canned turkey, cranberry juice
and Red Cross ditty bags
beside each plate. The chaplain
offered a prayer and then
led them in singing “Silent Night.”
The words hung in their throats
like a bayonet‘s edge,
carving a moment’s bridge
to that distant world
of red Santas, church candles
and hearth.
He sits today beside a festooned tree,
grandchildren laughing
among ribbons and wrappings,
their eyes like captured stars.
He listens as the anchor on CNN
drones of the Middle East and war
while young faces beneath helmets
drift across the screen.
He stares then past the tinseled twigs,
past the strung lights to distant shadows.
And there he sees the faces
and hears the rough carol
of the men of the 511th.
And he knows what all young soldiers
will learn—on the long road back
to the sanctity of home
the body count commingles with grace.
- Soldier’s Christmas - December 2, 2024
- The Inescapable Redundancy of War - April 17, 2024
- First Communion - July 12, 2023
