Echoes From Off Samar

"Remember me" from the distant past the faint, haunting voices
still echo from off Samar. "Remember me" but they say nothing
of the fear and agony and boredom and loneliness and anxiety and
nightmare. Or of the bomb blasts, the whining bullets and
screaming shells. But all is now calm with them as on the first
day of Eden.

Well why not? They earned their rest. On angry seas and in
hostile skies, they waited and watched and dodged and swerved and
attacked and retreated praying, "not me, not me" when the
Almighty reached out to touch them.

They knew it all, the terrifying noise and the equally terrifying
silence, the roaring flames, the fitful cries of the wounded, the
anguish at the first sight of death. Who would disturb them now
with memories of war?

And yet, if they could speak, surely each would say, "Do not let
my sacrifice be forgotten. If you cannot remember the loves that
never came, the children who never were, the dreams unfulfilled,
or the life unlived, at least remember my name."

"This one small thing, you owe me!!"

Copyright © 1994
Evan Hollis Crawforth
All rights reserved