Waist Gunner

Forty thousand feet over Berlin
Not one of us ever thought of sin.
All we knew was that when we fly
Some goddamn Kraut would die.

In the city, fire blossoms burst in view.

We’d wish there was more damage we could do.
Blazing ack ack burst all around
Trying to drive us to the ground.

Fighters closed with us at the suburbs of the city

And, to a man, we thought wouldn’t it be a pity
If, after this hard run
We’d fall before some lucky German’s gun.

Donald died, sitting in the glass

But I flamed the one that got him as he passed.
Captain Lewis feathered number three
And I reconciled what would be would be.

We trailed black smoke all across the channel.

The Krauts shredded our entire instrument panel.

Focke Wulf 190’s with large black crosses
Half way home piled up our losses.

Until you smell the stench of blood and cordite

Or freeze with forty thousand feet of frost bite
There ain’t no way I can explain it to you
Unless you’ve been where I been, and do what I do.

When we landed, they hosed Donald from the plane

And to this very day I can’t explain

How the hell it came to be
It was that poor kid and not me.

I’m ninety years old this next September.

I wish to God I couldn’t remember
The minutes, months and years of that war.
But I did what they sent me over there for.

* Every year I pen a Memorial Day poem. This is this year's contribution. This poem comes from the witness of an old B-17 waist gunner I met. He was a kid in '43. He could barely talk about it, but as he squeezed this story from between his pale lips, his eyes saw again the black-stained skies over Berlin. I don't use the profanity he used...but what is more profane than war?