An intriguing documentary on HBO this week about a WW2 war photographer named Tony Accardo (or Accaro). He was a purist in that he never staged scenes for an action shot, wanting to memorialize just how things were, and how, in the end, his war experiences impacted him.  The movie reminded me just how great of interests to me are the facts and people caught up in WW2, thus I doodled this poem.

I Was There

Of interest have always been World War II stories
The valiance of battles, victories and untold glories
And of the horror, inhumanity, and cost of human life
Both of the innocent and soldier of military might.

I've wondered from whence this curiosity came
Now realize by books my passion born and flamed
A photographic history of the war captivated
My youthful interest and on my mind weighted.

It was a set of five volumes of warring images
Taken in jungles, tropical isles, oceans and villages
Scenes as they occurred, gruesome, grim and grisly
By imbedded photographers, rifleless and risky.

Yet there were others, war victims happy and gay
Smiling and embracing their liberators unafraid
And the war machines, airplanes, ships, and tanks
Means of death and destruction for the axis and yanks.

Remarkable it was I could step into each scene
To be there, gifted with these imaginative dreams
And to witness the evil adversary of man's soul
Man's cruelty to man and the enmity that controls.

I marveled at the duty and bravery of every young man
Just weaned from his family to protect freedom's land
Barely old enough for his future when the war interfered
Cloaked in patriotism, eyes filled with empathetic tears.

Continuing on I walked through the haze of battlefields
Across Normandy, Tarawa, and flak the blue yonder fills
Heartened to see America's sons in freedom's cause
Each deserving of her honor, fighting in hell's jaws.

As my ventures ended and from each scene I leave
I sorrowed at nation's decisions for conflicts in history
Though I still immerse myself in the gun-smoked air
And leaf through history's images knowing I was there.

~by Larry Troxel~