Over Here

By David Cohea

Over the past decade, more than two million Americans veterans have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. For many, the physical and mental wounds suffered there have a shadowy half-life when these soldiers attempt to return home. "Over Here" is a series of narrative poems telling some of those stories, raising the question whether it's their war or our peace that is making healing so difficult.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Cohea
• Release date: Oct 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301067435

David Cohea

David Cohea is writer who lives in Central Florida. He has published poetry in numerous college publications. His book reviews have appeared in The Orlando Sentinel and The Florida Review.

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Over Here

Poems About War in Peace

By David Cohea

Copyright 2013 David Cohea

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Table of Contents

New Year's Eve At Arlington National Cemetery

Over The Rainbow

Two Wars

Stop-Loss

Rocky Top

The Security Guard

Faces On The Transport

Private Plato and Sergeant Rilke

Thinking About Smart War

The Drone Operator

The River Is A Desert Road

The Sands of Al-Hamad

The Trauma Ward

Feeding The Cats

American Graffiti, Iraqi Blood

Guns, Inc.

The Gun Range

The Humvee Mechanic Who Wished She Were Taylor Swift

The Power Man

Mother of All Storms

Father Visits Son's Grave

Risky Business

A Walk In Paradise

The Last American Hero's Brother

Guitars, Guns, Girls

When A Woman Goes Off To War

The Milky Breezes of Babeyal

Bullets In Bombs Out

Pickett's Charge

God of War

Band of Brothers

Memorial Day at Arlington

NEW YEAR'S EVE AT ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

A cold, rainy afternoon in the vast cemetery, the dead

swaddled in turf and dreaming of lost life. Just a few of

the living walk over them, between the tidy rows of white stones,

keeping watch, setting their frail candle of remembrance

afloat on grief's winter sea. The day is fading fast in the west

behind drab banks of cloud and rain; soon the visitors all must

leave behind sons and aunts and buddies and fathers and wives

and go home. One bends to leave a wedding photo before

a marker, weighting it down with a smooth stone; another in an

Army uniform stands a long while looking down at wet dead grass,

praying or talking or both. All the dead can say is what's written

on their stone—name and rank, service branch and death date—

a precise iteration repeated marker for white marker in falling rain.

The air chills and it’s sleeting, freezing tears to the national cheek.

After dark it will snow, thus lowering a downy cloak which will

assure some greater distance between the living and the dead

when the burials resume. But not yet. A woman in bends over

a marker, opens her jacket and whispers, these are still yours.

A few rows over, a man helps his 3-year-old son lay a rose before

another stone. Their grief is younger, still surprising; the boy

doesn't quite buy that his mother's in heaven. He bends and whispers

I'll get you out at the hard, drenched lawn. Section 60 is just one

of many chapters in this book of hardest ends of service to God

and country. At the other end of the cemetery, in the northeast

corner, the Civil War dead are vastly silent, oblivion sealing

everything except the battlefields which pour resonance into

the winter's cold—Gettysburg and Chickamagua and the

drifting Wilderness. In between lie the dead of Vietnam and

the Second and First World Wars, silent catacombs of wars

quelled so long ago that history's course recalls them

only as names who fell in one long march. Section 60 is just

the latest development in Arlington, two-thirds full with the

Afghanistan presence now slowing and thinning out.

No new burials for New Year's Day, but 17 are scheduled for

January 2—eight women and nine men: Seventeen fresh stones to

beckon fresh mourners to for that time when people remember

sacrifice and grieve. By the time those mourners cease returning

there will be plenty of fresh markers to keep the enterprise

going—that's Arlington, or the U.S, or simply war. But for this day,

let's walk with these particular mourners as they slowly file

toward the exits in dark sleet, night descending over the silent

dark reaches of freezing peace behind, the trees all bare, the

patter of iced rain on makers and graves slow and sure, in full

expectation that the weather of our national temperament

will never change as long as the dead keep getting forgotten

and the living send someone else's son and wife to war.

OVER THE RAINBOW

I wanted to see all of it, big-time, as bad and wild as it gets.

Wanted to be there, boots on the ground bent into a

sandstorm of bullets with my M4 ablaze. Wanted to feel

the percussive walls of blasts and see blood everywhere.

I wanted to see death in its hardest colors, terrible

and beautiful. You tell me why. I was 19 and needed

to fuck women, not just jerk off to computer porn.

I needed to drink whiskey instead of beer. I needed

to fly over an ocean, I needed to land somewhere

where it's not Topeka any more, where the laughter

is harsh and the forest is filled with trunks of steel

and the war is booty-beautiful and fucks for real.

I remember watching Shock and Awe on the big screen

TV in our house when I was still in high school, homework

forgot, sitting on the couch between Mom and Dad and

almost flying at the sight of all those smart bombs

lighting up the Baghdad night, riding the burning thermals

like a man-witch yodeling on his broom. Couldn't wait

to graduate and sign up for the Marines, could wait

to get through basic and ship the fuck out, flying

to Kuwait and boarding a Chinook bound for Fallujah

where we went in a second time after those contractors

had been shot and dragged through town and

hung from a bridge burnt and limbless in defiance.

Couldn't wait to lock and load, unzip, engage ...

The city was already burning from a rain of shells

from M109s when we got ready roll out: I can still

smell the smoke smarting my nostrils with that dying

sulfurous reek. Some joker had set up big PA cabinets

at the disembarking point and was blasting

AC DCs Hell's Bells at top volume; we sang along

with boots tromping at full gallop down a street

where every building was either toppled or

bullet-riddled or both. And then I was in it,

my M4 leveling fire into the smoke at every

jarring motion that was sending hellfire back,

rounds spitting into the wall behind me while

shells dropped on my running boots.

Everything slowed down and sped at once in the

maelstrom of assault, heads on roofs and in windows

exploding pink and guys around me going down

clutching a thigh or gut screaming and still firing.

I saw a mosque dome explode in a flash of white

phosphorous raining hell on the insurgents hidden

inside like a burning mother collapsing on her kids.

The sound of it was incredible, a hundred guns going

at once, shells exploding, RPGs whizzing in, walls

collapsing, Humvees burning, men screaming in

rage and terror, children with their mothers running

out of one building and maybe getting to the next

one or some of them going down to enemy or friendly

fire, what do they care when they're dead?

I was there, goddammit, witness to the hardest fighting

the Marines had seen since Mogadishu or even 'Nam:

my gun, my aim, my kills — fifteen by my count,

fifteen coffin nails of ultrafuck I savored each one

better than the last. It was pure Oz, in full Technicolor

and Surround Sound with Odorama thickening the brew

with sulphur and smoke and the copper reek of blood

that seemed to be pouring out of every window and up

from the sewer grates. It was like porn and ballet and

poetry at once on afternoon when the Second

Battle of Fallujah went full-tilt, chaos and divine

order showing both faces in the way a tank shell

took out a window splattering insurgent up and out,

frozen in midair and catching winter sunlight to

hang there almost forever—time stilled to

a freeze, icing the gates of eternity.

And then some raghead sniper nailed me in the thigh

and it all went down like a collapsing balloon, all

the fame and guts and glory bleeding out of me

so fast I almost died before the guys could

get close enough to drag me off the street.

One war ended for me with the first guy who

tried to get a hold of me: How gritty and earnest

he looked down on me, leaving no man behind,

right then taking an AK-47 round to the face

and falling in a dead heap next to me on the

road's rough bed, half-staring at me through

his own fatal wreckage. I said farewell

to my beautiful war as the next guy got to me

and dragged me off, my own blood in a thick

trail behind us waving bye bye. My femoral

artery was ruptured; it was miracle I was evac'd

alive but no wonder they had to amputate

my right leg up past the thigh, passing me from bed

to bed in Kuwait then Germany then over

the ocean, the hospital jet a torture house of

jolts and turbulence no amount of morphine

could soothe. I was set down at last in a

wheelchair at Walter Reed, my own personal

legless carriage on which I was released

to roll out to the rest of my fucking life.

It was a year before I got my first benefit check

so I had to move back to Kansas and live

with Mom and Dad, drinking beers all day

on the porch watching Topeka traffic

going everywhere I couldn't and listening

to nothing on my iPod at full volume.

Trying to be anywhere but there, draining

out my days through a catheter.

Nights are the worse, me sitting on the couch

between Mom and Dad while we watch

TV sitcoms and dramas that all shout of some

warless dream this country smokes like dope.

It's the price I pay for daily care, for as much

food and beer and Oxycodone as me the fallen

angel of the good fight is due—at least, that's

what Mom keeps saying when we're alone

though Dad I think just goes along, ashamed

almost of his rage at war as he is ashamed of

me, the one-legged warrior who came home

to Kansas to rain shitstorms of fate on them.

Mom's favorite show is Survivor while

Dad prefers reruns of Two and Half Men;

but it doesn't really matter because we

just sit and watch whatever all night

until Mom snoozes and Dad has drunk

enough from the half-gallon of whisky

to go into his Tin Man's freeze.

Leaving me to sit there changing channels

searching everywhere for Oz

and finding only peeks and whispers

over the vast shitplains of TV land—

guys battling gators in the swamps

and crime scene investigators picking

up eyeballs and severed fingers

as if they'd been hurled there from

a distant, booming land, staring

off into space in a contemplation

that never sees me sitting here

like Dorothy, with a jones for any

rainbow, singing in a ruptured bone.

All night I keep changing channels

without ever finding a way home.

TWO WARS

It was always two wars, the one

you heard about and the one you saw,

the official version and the street one.

The one you hoped for

and the one you feared.

The romance of kicking Saddam's ass

was so heady in the media leading up to

the invasion, everyone figured that any

spilled GI blood was well worth the sacrifice.

Besides, what's a WMD worth when we

have with Shock and Awe on our side?

The assault was clean and neat, precise

and humane, smart bombs, fast tanks,

you know: And the embedded press

said as much as long as the view

was so. Show the children laughing

and the woman clapping and the

men in joy shouting George Bush!

Not for the poor fuck enemy turkey-shot

where they fled, WWII rifles

at their feet, eyes closed in death

because they knew they had it coming

from somewhere, either from the

tyranny within or enemy abroad.

Not for the woman dropped by snipers

or the children shot in the face

trapped in minibuses at checkpoints

as families tried to flee the city.

In one version of the war, the

enemy was crushed by American might;

in the other, the enemy became

water, fading out of sight, the

guy who planted the IED

yesterday become the guy in the

crowd taking American dollars

to help rebuild a dam.

In one version of war, the locals

through a translator told the

marine lieutenant that they

wanted the security of peace;

and in the other version,

they told the Americans

whatever they wanted to hear

so they'd go away and

let them survive on their own.

In one version the American-

appointed Shia police chief tells

the American reporter that he'd

never fired a gun; in the other,

he whispers in Arabic to the

translator that he'd killed hundreds

off Sunnis himself, with his own

hands—a warning wrapped in welcome.

In one version of war, the Americans

are helping spread democracy

and in the other version the Americans

are unwitting servants of jihad.

In one version of the war, a single

dead Marine is a national tragedy.

In the other version, fifty men

are found dead on the streets of

Baghdad that same day, no room

in the morgue for them

and no way to grieve them

but to step around the pools of blood.

In one version of the war, it

ended when the tanks rolled through

Baghdad and provided the engine

to pull down Saddam's bronze statue.

Or it ended when GIs searching

in near Tikrit found the ex-tyrant

hiding in a hole in the ground.

In the other version, war paused

for those years American boots were on

the ground only to resume when

they faded out, Shia and Sunni at each

other's throats, the land crying

thirsty for blood and a tyrant

as glorious as Saddam.

In one version of war, its

the porn of high-tech arms,

mowing down fields of ragheads

with Megadeth blasting in your ears,

A10 Warthogs roaring overhead

and the American flag untouched

through out the fray. In the other

version of war, it's three orphans

wailing in terror in a basement

while the bombs keep falling

while their three legged dog

survives by eating body parts

strewn about the rubble the next day.

In one version of war, it's medals of

honor polished and bright and crisp

and displayed in boxes on the mantle.

In the other version, a legless veteran

rots away in his mother's house

drinking whiskey and gobbling meds

obsolete and unemployable

and long subtracted from the glory.

In one version of war, I get

to chase the fantasy of the

American dream with not

one brother or nephew or

aunt killed by drone strikes to

mar the poetry of war.

In the other version,

I'm too shell-shocked from

versions of war to know

that the powers I here shout

are too loud to count or

matter and we had better

bury this goddamned poetic

if anyone's going to survive.

THE HOMELESS VET

If there was any sense of his life before the first deployment —where

could it be found in Detroit, where the city burns every Halloween,

the only population growth now in burnt-out buildings?—

it