David X Novak
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The Ballad of the Man He Killed


Watching The War on my TV
        Brings to my recollection
So many thoughts—no “Greatest,” we
        Were but, per my reflection,

A decent, ordinary folk,
        Hard-working, loyal, true,
As strove to beat the Nazi yoke
        With our Red, White and Blue.

In those days there was more respect
        For what we call Old Glory,
The flag, her rituals to protect,
        But that is not my story.

The show reveals exciting times,
        As caught up in the crush
Of swift events, all nickels, dimes
        Combined to help the push.

That was before I was called up,
        And I was glad to go--
Rejected twice, I didn’t stop,
        They took me even so.

No, I was not a pilot on
        A carrier running sorties--
That was my brother—a young man,
        Those were the Nineteen-Forties.

I was what you would call today
        A common foxhole grunt,
No “Greatest Generation,” say
        Whatever you may want.

Those fellows that I served with were
        An upright bunch of boys,
Nor don’t call me an officer,
        However fate deploys.

It’s sixty years and more since then,
        But I can plainly see
Faces I’ll never meet again
        Save in eternity.

There was a lot of memories
        About the times and all,
And all of these, so the TV’s
        Brought back, and I recall--

But that, of all the things I want
        To tell you—not the times--
They are not what’s significant,
        The nickels and the dimes:

The dances, the Glenn Miller band
        The TV can recount,
But time moves on, and with its hand
        Sweeps off a large amount.

That’s why the story that I have
        To tell you is important,
For I was not heroic, brave,
        Or saved by prescient portent--

I saw enough of death and all,
        Yet some of us survived,
As to old men death comes to call,
        The lives that we have lived

Gradually leaving little trace
        Except for TV shows--
Alas, goes on the human race
        Perpetuating woes.

Good friends I had that died, of course,
        And I’ll be glad to join them,
But there’s a vision so much worse
        I have—I can’t restrain them,

These tears you see, if not profuse
         (I weep them every day),
Because in war I find no use
        No matter what fools say.

O, I believe we had to keep
        Hitler from taking over,
But victory yet wasn’t cheap;
        Some lucky ones recover.

Hitler was evil; but look what
        Occurred once he was gone--
Stalin—an ideological cut
        And paste enforced by gun.

No, why I cry, you understand,
        And why I have to tell,
You won’t find on TV—no grand
        Battle proudly befell.

It was a lot of chaos as
        They make the movies now,
While what I saw shall never pass
        Till heaven may allow--

It is a memory recurrent
        Oppresses in my dreams,
For which I have found no deterrent
        And I wake up with screams.

All was explosions; in the air
        A smoke so thick to clot,
And all was darkness everywhere,
        And I myself had got

A something sticking in my leg,
        I couldn’t hardly move,
The dead lay scattered—and I beg
        God’s mercy from above.

It was amongst the German forces,
        The soldiers lying dead,
Reflected light from unknown sources
        Revealed a moving head--

At least I thought so: all my boys
        Were either dead or gone,
While we two, poise to counterpoise
        It seemed were left alone.

He crawled or slithered toward me with
        A weapon in his hand--
This is not some heroic myth,
        Glib authors be ye damned!

He was a boy of seventeen,
        Could not have been much older,
Seen clearly as you here are seen
        And I was his beholder.

He must have been good German stock--
        The kind Hitler approved--
Yet even though I was in shock
        I wish he hadn’t moved.

It’s kill or be killed, as you know,
        So as the boy approached,
Meaning my death—not for dumb show--
        His life away I poached.

He was a blond, and handsome kid,
        Yet he meant deadly business--
In self-defense, the act I did
        Did not cause any queasiness--

I slept for twenty hours or more
        Straight in the hospital--
Recovered, to go back to war,
        But that night took its toll.

It was a dreamless sleep that first,
        But never any since,
Nor is it I was specially cursed,
        For which no evidence;

But subsequently every night
         (And it is sixty years)
The visitation comes, the fright,
        The handsome youth appears--

And I must shoot him once again--
        It is a horror, horror,
Sweat covers me: so it has been
        A lifetime, nightly terror:

Terror of having killed a boy
        That was so beautiful,
That never knew life’s later joy:
        I’ve had a life that’s full.

As by an accident of fate
        My seed proliferates
Unto the generations—“great”
        Not nearly, word which grates.

So I have even lived to see
        Grandchildren of my own
Have children; but that German, he--
        That boy—will not have known.

All of these things he never had,
        And all I have enjoyed,
Because of war—all war is bad--
        Because of me destroyed.

It was not like an option might
        Present itself to me;
What I must do I did, that night,
        But so regrettably.

That’s why I have to talk to you,
        To make you understand:
My comrades yes were comrades true,
        Camaraderie is grand,

And looking back, the times were not
        Without their pleasures even,
But I recall the man I shot
        So early sent to heaven.

Hardly more than a boy, he was,
        And if I had not killed him,
I would have died; and yet because
        I did, I have instilled him

To be a nightly visitor
        Eliciting my tears,
Shuddered revulsion at the core
        Despite these many years.

You fight these further wars today,
        But truly “war is hell,”
An adage true, so I relay
        What no TV can tell.

An old man’s tears have no account
        To any but himself--
They’ll package, what for some amount
        You may put on your shelf,

A video as describing war
        With extra scenes not seen
On your TV: but war is more
        That that, as packaged clean.

Edited—so you understand--
        The story that is told
Leaves out the message men are damned
        By what is sold as bold.

Historically, so it is an
        Event, if not forgotten,
Of all events that come to man,
        This visitation rotten,

Most horrible and most horrendous,
        Not something to be sought,
More stupefying than stupendous,
        War and what war has wrought.