The Flag of the United States of America
Whose beloved children have given Freedom and Liberty
With their own lives to others and me.
I gratefully bow my head before
The Flag of the United States of America
Whose beloved children have given Freedom and Liberty
With their own lives to others and me.
The Skies of a Child of War
A school of fish
In the skies…
No, it’s a formation of helicopters.
They fly so close above my head
I wave at them, the American warriors.
I am only a child,
I found no expression for my intuitive worries
How many choppers will come back?
How many soldiers will die for my country
How many children in America will stay up,
Reading the Western Union message
Their Dad will never return.
The colors of the uniform on the Marine…
He came to knock on the door,
He left a beautiful American Flag,
Red, White, and Blue.
The colors we all live and die for each other...
Linh Duy Vo
(The Boy in the Poem)
25 May 1998 ©
The poem was read at the Memorial Day ceremony 1998
by Congressman Steve Horn, my former President at Cal State Long Beach
© Copyright by Linh Duy Vo. All rights reserved.