The Last Patrol - Anonymous

When A Man Is Lost, He Returns To His Last Known Thing,

It Is Possible The Same Is True For Souls

I Have Rummaged Therefore Through Childhood

for The Essence Of My Manhood

I Have Found Only Where The Boy Was Born,

And Where He Was Taught To Love and To Trust

But Since Im Am No Longer He....It Is Meaningless

Delightful But Without Value


Allot Of Good Men Died In Vietnam, But Like Some Of You, I Was Born There

So Sometimes Like You,

I Just Get Tired Of Waiting For Me To Feel Like Me Again

On Days Like That, (Late Nights Actually)

I Just Pull Back Into My Bivouac Of Middle Age

To The Very Edge Of The TV, Hunker Down Into The Chair

And Get Black Faced In My Mind And Blank In My Heart

Ready To Slip Under The Wire For One Last Patrol


And With The Last Strands Of The Star Spangled Banner In My Ears

The Tube Turns The Night Into Snow,

And I Am Gone...Quietly, Quickly,

Past The Concertina, On The Downhill Slope Of My Nightly Fears

Into The No Mans Land Where All My Dreams Explain

All I Failed To See When First I Lived It

Oh Oh.... There It Is,

Be Careful Just Like It’s Real Life,

Step Over Those same Trip Wires Like The First Time,


Hey? Can I Screw Up? Can I Blow Myself Up On A Late Night Reveille?

A Little On The Frantic Side... Can I Change The Past?

And Be Dead All Along? Oh Shit.....

Tonight I Am Moving Swiftly, Even In My Pain

And I Am Missing Nothing

I Am A One Man Search, And Recollect Mission

Back, Way Back...The Way I Came In

And This Time? Maybe I'll find It...Whatever It Was

That Went Wrong

Like Being Part Of The Youngest, Least Experienced

Group Of Americans Ever To Go To War.....

Hell, Where I Came From...You Kill A Chicken? You Go To Jail


I Never Killed Anything, First Thing I Ever killed Was No Kinda Thing At All

It Was An Enemy Solider, Which Is A Hell Of Allot Easier To Say...

Then The first Thing I Ever Killed, Was A Man

I’m Moving Even Better Now, And My Guts Tell Me

In The Next Few Moments I Will Be Reunited With Myself

In That Ever Lasting Moment Of Truth

When Last My Mind , Body, Heart, And Soul Were One




Manys The Night, I've Woke Up In a Cold Sweat, Screaming In My Sleep...

In My Dreams..... I Have Relived That Night Again

And Again

And Again

With The Deep Inner Fear....That One Night....

That Patrol... Will Never End