Editor’s Note: this is a continuation of Marlow’s tale about a buddy who lived some extraordinary times in extraordinary places- and paid a price. It is interesting to see what currency was used. Some, like you guys, gave something. There is always something around the next bend in the river. Others gave it all. Let’s remember them.

Please.

– Vic

Sailor Star Song of PBR Mike

A brief follow on to my last missive.
– Marlow

PBR Mark II in Vietnam

We are all born with stars, but they are as different as we are from one another. For voyagers, they are guides. For many, they are just little twinkling lights in the sky. For the studious, they are to be pondered. For the creative, they serve as inspiration. All stars are silent until we chose to hear our own speak.

Stars are what we value in life, be they dreams, aspirations, or big ambitions. Sometimes people remain willfully deaf, dumb and blind to their stars. Some die before hearing their song. Others may interfere and try to redirect us from our stars to a path they want us to walk.

That long-ago day when his PBR rounded the river bend was the first time Mike truly started to hear his own star speak to him. He was not harmed but started on a new path to prosper and have hope and a future.

Mike came home a decorated war veteran, shocked to be alive. But his life in the Cold War Navy alternated from rise to descent to rise. The Navy in those days tolerated his ups and downs. Knowledge and treatment of PTSD’s rage and self destruction were decades away. When he finally started to focus steadily enough on his stars a decade later, his upward success became a constant in his physical and emotional lives.

The mystery of his post war suffering and the mystery of his survival no longer tortured him.

Blinded by the river’s glare
Boat silently gliding without a care
Rounding the bend, fell into a snare
Each party hoping neither saw the others there

Blindly staring to starboard over the guns
We could see the souls of these passers by
So many lives
So many pairs of eyes

A pure wish
We were invisible
If only for a moment
A pure wish
We tried to control it

As the boat passed, illusion started to tear
Everybody slowly dropped but continued to stare
Cause now we had no fear
We believed this would not end in tears

Blindly staring to starboard over the guns
We could see the souls of these passers by
So many lives
So many pairs of eyes

A pure wish
We were invisible
If only for a moment
A pure wish
We tried to control it

Those strangers I carry with me
I’m still alive; my stars guiding me
When I’m long gone; they’ll still be with me
But it’s not over
There’re spaces in between
They kept death’s cold far from them and me
This warmness means life’s not over

Blindly staring to starboard over the guns
We could see the souls of these passers by
So many lives
So many pairs of eyes

A pure wish
We were invisible
If only for a moment
A pure wish
We tried to control it

Couldnt turn the boat around
Neither side laid their weapons down
Or let bullets fly across the sky
No soldiers died, just wanted to get home
A mini cease-fire was had on the battlefield
Enough of us had already been wounded and killed

Blindly staring to starboard over the guns
We could see the souls of these passers by
So many lives
So many pairs of eyes

A pure wish
We were invisible
If only for a moment
A pure wish
We tried to control it

Sailor Star

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