Private John Reese's Poem On The Beach

Private John Reese sat down on the wilted grass overlooking the beach, taking long drafts on his disintegrating cigarette from a shaking hand. He heard nothing. His ears were still ringing. The crash of the waves below and rapid beating of propellor planes overhead only sounded of long, hollow thuds to his eardrums.

He gazed out at the narrow slivers of gray gliding ashore, ramps sprouting from their hulls and then hundreds of little olive dots marching out into the surf and onto the sand, which had been stained a pinkish-brown from the men’s bellies. Raising his quaking hand, he tried to take another drag on his cigarette, only to find that it had burned down to an useless stub. Grunting in detest, he took his pointer finger and flicked the

War machines; massive bulks of gray steel, bristling with guns, hovered off the coast, waiting to drop off men onto the beach. The surf closest to beach was a filthy copper color, spilled blood and water-saturated organs were recirculating themselves in the crashing waves. On the beach, men with shovels sifted through splotches of red in the sand, recovering severed limbs, and packs stuffed with gear that had been discarded. Crews pulled out long spindles of wire connecting land mines and destroyed the sharpened spikes of iron protruding from the shore. On the bluffs, the decimated concrete bunkers were still belching black smoke into the air, some were still ablaze- The bright orange flames contrasting with the drab

“I know that it must be hard, losing your entire unit. I know men who’ve been there. I’ve seen what it does to them.” O'Connell hesitated and paused for a moment.

John didn’t want him to talk about it, but he was helpless. He knew there was nothing to say make the Captain change the subject.

“I knew that you and you and Jackson were close, right? The Sergeant was a friend of your fathers before the war?”

John felt his hearing fade again, the whoosh of blood being pumped through his arteries, the searing fever fueling the drip of stinging sweat into his eyes, bile rising in the back of throat.

“Yeah,” John mustered, looking at the ground and avoiding O'Connell's gaze. “Sarge was a family friend, he was my little league coach. A school teacher.”

John squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to remember his face. Trying to forget how he died.

“He was a damn good soldier too, judging by his record,” O'Connell huffed, seemingly forgetting the sensitive nature of the situation.

That comment was the last straw, it broke the barrier in John’s mind, and the flood of memories from that morning that he had been trying to restrain flowed back into his