There's No Other Place I'd Rather Be

Way back when in the middle of sixty nine,

I was sixteen and out of my mind.

I’d party day and night,

and loved to start allot of fights.

I drank Ripple and Kools I smoked,

so much that with every breath I’d choke!

I smoked and used allot of Dope too,

and did any Damned thing I wanted to do.

I cut allot of School,

I didn’t know it but I was a fool.

I just did’t care or really understand,

I thought it made me more a man.

I had any girl I chose,

and I was just sixteen years old.

Later that year I felt a need to change my ways,

and joined the Army on my seventeenth Birthday.

I  never imagined what was in store for me,

and how damned tired am man could be.

Up every morning at the crack of Dawn,

and ready to pass out when daylight was gone.

Too make it even worse: I thought I was Bold,

I didn’t like to do as I was told.

I never in this world seen so Damned many Potatoes.

But as weeks went by,

I understood they were teaching me to survive.

The Army taught me to be a man,

and to be all I can.

I went to Vietnam to fight the war,

and seen the most frightening of it’s Horrors.

But if I had not went into the Army,

I almost surely would have died.

I can remember when my service came to an end,

dead were so many of my Gang Banger friends.

Overdosed or shot in the head,

either way they were dead.

Though in the Army I had allot of strife,

‘twas because of them I survived.

Because of injuries and P.T.S.D,

I no longer serve in the Army.

But if the chance was again given to me,

there’s no other place I’d rather be.

Sgt Duke Sherman

G-Troop, 2/11 ACR

Black Horse Soldiers

Vietnam Veteran