A sad farewell to Wendell Brown – war hero

A sad farewell to a war hero

Wendell Brown, a homeless man, suffered from depression following his service in Vietnam, but won the hearts of the people in Brentwood with his upbeat poems. He was another one of those victims of collateral damage, the term the war mongers like to use when we commit mass murder on innocent bystanders and do lifetime damage to those chosen the inflict the damage on others and witness the suffering first hand. Brown, a sergeant in the US Army in Qui Nhon, Binh Dinh Province, Vietnam, was being pursued by the Viet Cong and a woman hid him in her hut. The Viet Cong soldiers stabbed her to death and he then killed the soldiers and their officer. His lingering visions and nightmares made life difficult for him ever since. We have a name for that now. It is called PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

I didn’t know him or know about him. I was just struck by one of his little poems:

“Ballad of a Bushman”

Some clustered bushes shelter me,

In loneliness and misery,

They shield me from the wind and cold,

And help keep what hopes I hold.

Wendell McKelvey Brown – he served us well, better than we cared for him – may he rest in peace.

 

 

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