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| Source for image and the poem: “Nicholas Oresko, 96, a Hero of the Battle of the Bulge, Dies,” New York Times, October 3, 2013 |
He crawled back through the snow.
He saw red, blue and purple flame.
And then his helmet hit a booby trap wire.
He lay bleeding, unseen by the Germans.
He tossed a grenade into one bunker.
“I think about that incident every day.
It never leaves you. When you kill somebody,
you remember it, or it remembers you.”
Bayonne named a school for him.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of five poetry collections, most recently Cryptic Endearments from Knives Forks & Spoons Press. He has a number of chapbooks forthcoming, including Elephant Gun from Dog on a Chain Press. His poetry has been nominated multiple times for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net anthology. goodh51(at)gmail.com.