LFS: The Storyteller

©2013 by LeeZard People say it all the time, "Happy Memorial Day." To me, that's an oxymoron. Barbecues, road trips and picnics aside, Memorial Day is a somber and serious occasion. From http://www.usmemorialday.org “Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. There are many stories as to its actual beginnings, with over two-dozen cities and towns laying claim to being the birthplace of Memorial Day. There is also evidence that organized women's groups in the South were decorating graves before the end of the Civil War: a hymn published in 1867, "Kneel Where Our Loves are Sleeping" by Nella L. Sweet carried the dedication ‘To The Ladies of the South who are Decorating the Graves of the Confederate Dead.’  Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic and was first observed on...

I came across this free-verse during a recent move - and cleaning out of old (and I mean old) files. It was written in the late 1960s, at the height of the Vietnam War. My older brother was in the Marines and in the middle of the war zone, as he put it, "building the road to Da Nang with a rifle and a shovel." It is short but, I believe, very powerful. Sadly, it is still true today. ©2007 by LeeZard (Pulitzer Prize winning photo: Kent State students killed by National Guard during Viet Nam War Protest) He’s a boy. You’ve given him a gun, You taught him how to shoot. You’ve given him a knife, You taught him how to kill. You’ve taken him from home, You taught him how to hate. You call him a man. He’s a boy. A boy who can shoot, Kill, And hate.