"The Making and Un-making of a Marine"

by Lawrence Winters

for Richard Boes 02/22/09

Nam Brother Waiting at the Station
by Larry Winters

It wasn't a long journey but by God it went through some hellacuios countryside.

The train pulled out at dawn's early light rumbling the station platform.

He made his way down the aisle hand over hand on the seatbacks.

Caboose was where he was headed, in the back, at the end.

Where he could watch

whose head poked out the window,

who snuck aboard,

who jumped off too scared to make the trip.

He'd be riding all the way home and knew it.

The tracks he'd ridden in his life bent and buckled their way across America.

In South East Asia the train took on fire.

He sweated in Nam's 120 degree heat.

He came home with a crimp in his style

and started getting on every train out of hell.

Rode only midnight trains that bulleted so fast

the landscape was nothing by a warring green strip of don't see me.

The caboose car whip-tailed its way through his life.

His shaking hand scribbling out the words each railroad tie creaked to him.

When the Last Dead Soldier Left Alive, boarded the Last Train Out

he knew where it was going and how fast it would take to get there.

He rode proud, riding point for me and the Nam brothers still waiting at the station.

Richard Boes died yesterday at the VA Hospital in Albany NY. Richard enlisted into the US Army and served in Vietnam in 1969 - 1970 with the First Air Cav. He is the author of two books, The Last Dead Soldier Left Alive (2007) a first hand inquiry into why thousands of Vietnam Veterans have committed suicide and Last Train Out (2008). Right up to his death Richard was writing a third, In the Valley of Dry Bones. And he was my friend.

Dayl Wise
0A

More Than Surviving: Living with Serious Illness
by Lorrie Klosterman Chronogram January 30, 2009

Soldier Traveling

Author Richard Boes from Rhinebeck is penning the last volume in a trilogy of books in spite of cancer that, formerly in check, has returned with a vengeance. He didn't foresee a trilogy when he finished the first book, The Last Dead Soldier Left Alive (iUniverse, 2007), which blends fiction with a documentation of what his life has been like as a disabled Vietnam veteran. But having recently completed the second, Last Train Out (iUniverse, 2008), to resounding praise, he is under way with In the Valley of Dry Bones. "It's about right where I'm at, right now," he says, which is with the cancer that he cedes is going to win. "It ends when I stop," he says about the chances he'll complete the book. Boes's life as a combat soldier put him within death's reach many times, so he's seen it all his adult life. "It's no stranger to me," he says, and he finds ways to accept it without feeling sorry for himself. "I'm dealing with the reality that the cancer has spread all over, so there is not much of a future. It's a difficult pill to swallow. Now I kind of try to put it into perspective, that it s the natural flow of life. When I'm in that frame of mind, it's easy to accept, and I'm eager to move on." He realizes that Last Train Out may become very successful, and wishes he could see that. "Sure, I'd like some more years—like 20." He chuckles quietly and adds, "But my job was to write the book. So instead of feeling sorry that I'm not going to see the success, it's a blessing that I got to finish it. I try to keep that kind of attitude." Even though that frame of mind can be elusive sometimes, he finds it again by reviewing the good things. "I look at what I have to be grateful for. It's hard to be angry or have negative emotions if you're grateful." [more...] [[[will be added when Chronogram server is back up]]]

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Last updated: March 14, 2009

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