Yesterday When I Was Young
It's a long way back to
yesterday
when I was just a lad at
play.
Riding bikes and
flying kites,
chasing dreams of future
things,
running in the
sun
saying my prayers when
day was
done.
Slept the whole night
through
with pleasant dreams
and pretty girls
in view!
Yes, just a carefree
youth
having fun at the swimming
hole
and fishing with a home-grown
pole.
No worries at all in the
springtime
of my
life.
Had no thoughts of marriage
and a pretty
wife,
Just doing the farm chores
every morning and
night,
going to school and doing
right.
Studying the books,
learning to view the world
from the vantage
of my
youth,
ever searching for the role
of truth.
Making good grades
enjoying life!
Valedictorian, president
of the senior
class
lots of friends but never thinking
that these things
would pass.
But, one day in
December
came a date to
remember,
for the Rising Sun did a job
on the Harbor
at Pearl,
ever changing my young view
of a changing
world.
No time left to play
in the warming
sun,
time to fight, don a uniform
learn to shoot
a gun.
Off to college in the old
Army Air
Corps,
dreaming of that day
as a fighter pilot
in a crazy
war!
No time to lie in the
sun
until World War Two
was won.
Didn't know that some of
my friends would
die
while flying bombers
high up in the
sky!
First was Emmett Bagwell
flight engineer and
gunner
in the Mighty Eighth,
from England's
shore
flying in the magnificent
B-24.
Blown to bits when
he and his
crew
with a load of bombs
exploded on
a mission which they
never
flew!
We hadn't been taught
how to deal with
death,
we just had to learn through
heartaches
that in war some always
lose their
life-giving breath!
Now it's hard to lose a
friend
knowing that you'll never
see him play ball
again.
Emmett was the best on the
court
for basketball was his
favorite
sport.
The score never remained the
same
when the coach put Emmett
in the game.
How can it be that one such as
he
so young and fancy
free
has gone to play in God's
court up above,
beyond our view from Earth,
for Emmett, while here
had a second
birth?
Bear the pain, count the
cost
but always remembering
the magnitude of
our loss!
And there were others
who fell from the
sky
from twenty-thousand feet
to die.
Our world was changed from those
carefree days when we
played in the
sun.
Never again will we return
to the
yesterday's when
swimming holes
and fishing poles
and boy-hood dreams and
pretty girls
made up our
world.
The veterans of many wars
were changed to
men
from boys,
and now this late time of life
keeps us still looking
for our long-lost
toys.
We do have other games
such as
PTSD
which bring the Mares
of the Night
bringing vivid sights
and sounds
of a world gone mad
and having made their
rounds
at the break of day
at times they find their way
back to the dens
from which they came,
to rest a bit
and then return to play
their game!
As for me, I'd like to play
in the sun
again,
with the ole
swimming hole
and home-made
fishing pole,
even in the
rain!
Friends, I refuse to
forget
and think of them
yet
when we were boys
with bikes and
a pretty girl
in our carefree
world
of yesterday!
Thoughts of a WWII veteran who came home with
PTSD sixty years ago.
C. Douglas Caffey of the 509th Composite
Bomb Group, 58th Wing
Air Photo Unit
Army Air Corps
20th AF
