Vietnam and Other Wars
by Dave Donelson
We sit in the diner as old men do, reciting bone spurs and arthritis. One TV shows golf, another broadcasts America’s favorite spectator sport, foreign war.
John reminisces about Vietnam, not fondly. He was drafted; I dodged until the lucky lottery excused me. At the time, neither of us could vote.
“What turned you against the war?” he asked.
I told about the soldier who boarded the bus I was riding to Arkansas. He dragged a bandaged leg and juggled a heavy duffle that I helped him lift to the overhead bin.
“Can you tell me about the war?” I asked.
“This is the war.” He pointed to his leg. “Now leave me alone.” He closed his eyes.
I went back to my seat to ponder the rhetoric and the reality.
“He got off the bus in Joplin,” I told John, “I said good-bye but he didn’t.”
Dave Donelson is a freelance writer and artist whose work has appeared in dozens of publications as diverse as American Atheist, the Christian Science Monitor, Plum Creek Review, Inkwell, and Stoneboat Journal. The author of 16 books of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and memoir, Dave was honored in 2023 by the NYS Council on the Arts for his collection of graphic poetry, Visions of a Certain Age. An overview of his work can be found at www.davedonelson.com.