Fear For Cousin Donnie
By Khimberly Osborne

Sweat dribbles from the wrinkles in his forehead.
He sizzles in the humid, hot jungle.
Donnie's eyes darted frantically, left to right, in the black starry night.
He patrolled the jungle for enemy snippers.
He hears a twig snap and pivots around.
He gripped the gun tightly and aimed toward the noise.
The bright light flashed in the midnight sky.
A bullet attacked him in the head...killing him instantly.
Cousin Donnie's name is engraved in the cold, black, stone of the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

This page is made in memory of my cousin Donnie. My fondest memory I have of Donnie is when we were thirteen and my famly visited his family. They lived on a farm in Idaho and he had built a "fort" in the stack of bales of hay. You'd crawl through a tunnel he made and drop down into the pile of hay in the bottom. Oh to be young again. Thank you Cousin Donnie for giving up your life for our country. Your cousin Francie

~FREEDOM IS NOT FREE~

I saw the flag pass by one day. It fluttered in the breeze.
A young marine saluted it, and then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform, so young, so tall, so proud.
With eyes alert and hair cut square, he'd stand out in any crowd.
I wandered how many men like him had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil, how many mothers'tears.
How many pilots' planes shot down, how many died at sea.
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves.  No, Freedom Is Not Free.
Author Unknown By Me