SSG Louis J Lawver Sr (Opa Lou)- Jan 1967
Med-Evac'd from RVN to Ward 5 West in
US Army Fitzsimons General Hospital in Denver, Colorado

The Return

What happened to the one we knew
That left us, once a young man?
He went away to fight a war
In a place called Vietnam.
He went, he saw, he fought the war,
And then returned one day.
But the man that came back in his place,
Was a stranger in many a way.

He returned to a place he once called home,
But it all seemed different now.
He wanted to be like he was before,
He tried, but he didn't know how.
The ambitions he had just disappeared,
An emptiness took it's place.
In trying to fill the void he had
He dropped out of the daily race.

Alcohol, Drugs and dark Smokey rooms
Couldn't hide the pain that he felt.
He tried so hard to forget it all,
But he still had the cards he'd been dealt.
The ones he met didn't understand.
They didn't know of his grief.
He became a Loner and drank too much,
Trying to get some relief.

He needed to cast the demons away,
That haunted him day and night.
His country had called and he had gone,
But somehow it wasn't all right.
No one promised him how it would be,
They just told him to be a man.
So he fought and left a part of his soul,
Back there in Vietnam.

The piece that he left can never return,
It was buried with those he called friends.
But the process of healing takes a long time
And we must be there until he can mend.

Opa Lou has many vivid flashbacks and recollections from his time in
Ia Drang Valley, TET68 and the Defense of DakTo Airfield during
The Viet-Nam war.