Letter to the Lost

I am a brother to all who are dead, we all wear the rags of war.

Photo Credit: iStock

By Tom Sheehan

Dear Big John and Little John and Billy and Hughie Menzies and Londo and Eddie McCarthy and Breda and Kujawski and the comrade I carried to his death whose name I never knew and all the others I pray for every night yet, the men of the 31st Infantry Regiment and brother outfits of the 17th Regiment and the 32nd Regiment and the 49th Field Artillery Battalion, and all the comrades and all the wars.

Every reading I’ve done for more than 67 years simply begins this way: John Maciag was all bone, knees, elbows, and jaw, hated his rifle, proficient at killing, wanted home so badly it burned his soul. We leaned up that mountain near Yangu, frightened. War’s hurricane tore our ranks, trees of us lifted by roots. I came running down three days later. Like cordwood the bodies were piled between two stakes, all Korean but that jaw of John Maciag I saw, a log of birch among the pine. The sergeant yelled to move on. I said no, maybe never. I am going to sit and think about John Maciag’s forever, whose fuel he is, what the flames of him will light. Perhaps he will burn the glory of man or God.

When asked to read to celebrate my new book of memoirs, I wanted to let the audience enter the cubicle where the work came from. This…