FREEDOM

Dancing to the eerie rhythm of the waves,

Pieces of my brothers litter the shore.

Warm stains darken my uniform,

The last thing my friend will ever give me.

I hold him, his eyes look past me,

His last breath escapes into the night.

Suddenly my own screams fill my ears,

The sky explodes above me.

I lay my head back into the moist sand,

Pain rips through my belly.

Alone and scared on a foreign beach,

Thoughts of my family drift into my head,

My life drains into the sand.



Rest easy America your freedom has been paid for.   
                             
                             
                                 Douglas c. Face

                                                                               April, 2007

Where this poem came from.

I knew for most of my teen years that I was supposed to die at the age of 24 on foreign soil.

I got out of the Marines before it happened and I felt lost every since.

I got drunk one night on a fifth of rum and watched a war movie. I spend a lot of time in the place where fantasy and reality merge. There is defiantly a fine line between them and the closer that you get to the line the more faded it gets. That night I had a hallucination, I lived the death that I missed at the age of 24. For years I just knew that something was wrong because I was alive. That night I died on a foreign beach with my best friend in my arms, my body racked with bullets. I could feel each one of them tearing a path through my body. I physically felt them go through me.

I think it was Gods way for me to feel like I had done my part, a way for me to go on with the life that I didn't consider my own. The life I hadn't earned. Everything after the age of 24 was stolen. This was the only way for God to let me understand that it was ok.

Anyway that’s what I would like to believe. It could have just been an alcohol induced hallucination created by my own guilt.

That’s where this poem came from; I would like to apologize to all of my marine brothers that went into hell without me. I wanted to be there with you. I still do.