You see them everywhere
and probably don't even realize it.
Not a one of them under 70 now,
(unless they lied about their age to go, and people did that then…)
At the grocery stores,
Driving down the highway maybe a little slower than you'd like,
Wearing the old man uniform:
Baseball cap,
Windbreaker and pullover shirt,
and those cotton pants
of a color that shouldn't exist.

There aren't as many of them nowadays,
their age catching up with them,
and for many of them
the cigarettes they learned to smoke at Camp Kilmer
or on the troop ship
or under a poncho in a foxhole somewhere.
They're starting to show the wear of the years
and the things they saw that they shouldn't have.
Their steps are hesitant,
their hands sometimes shake,
but you can still see it in their eyes…
the hardness.
And in some of them, maybe a remaining trace
of the thousand-yard stare.

These are the guys
who rode the Grants into Kasserine Pass,
and found out the hard way
they were no match for the Panzers.
They learned what it meant to hit the beach at Oran,
knew what a shallow draft boat did to your guts
in pitching seas,
Felt the stab of fear in those last few seconds
before the ramp dropped
and you didn't know who or what was on the other side of the surf.

They were the ones
who backed their way down through the Philippines,
Wondering whether the fortresses could hold out,
backing up until there wasn't anywhere else to go.
They sat in the caves under Corregidor,
seeing the rations halved, and halved again,