It’s a stranger moon than I have ever seen in the Texas sky,

I’m more afraid of what I don’t see than no cars coming by,

It’s following me as I walk this highway I’ve driven so often,

Been to hell and back but thought I’d be riding in a coffin,

I wish I wasn’t going home but I have no other place to go,

Over two years ago it took extreme courage just to show,

This damn sea bag is suppose to weigh eight nine pounds,

I’m so lean now compared to when I carried so many rounds,

The draft and war was terrible but my time is finally through,

My heart is so heavy as I struggle to get my mind off of you,

I’ve journeyed through my mind and my emotions trying to find,

Why I haven’t heard from you is finally taking a toll on my mind,

I have no idea why I’m sobbing so deeply as if I’m a beaten child,

To say I’m as low as a man can get would be words far too mild,

The Navy medic prescribed these pills to ease my mind he said,

I’ve wondered many times if they should make me feel so dead,

I’m night walking so alone, I feel I have no ties to family or friend,

Perhaps a cry alone in the darkness will help my heart to mend,

I’ve studied these stars alone at night as I prayed you would wait,

It seems as if the brutality that brought me home came too late,

I suffered the greatest cruelties man can place upon another,

If I endured it to return home to emptiness I would prefer other,

Although you’re still so young I know your heart once felt love,

If once for me it must have departed to be no longer thinking of,

It seems as if I was born with you in a place no living soul knows,

A place where eternal love is born and a river of love forever flows,

So rare is this anomalous wonder that for a day a choir of angel sings,

Songs open to trumpets blare and soften to harmonizing violin strings,

As I walk and I cry I remember remembering the future of your hand,

So crazy is my heart that to forever hold your hand I crazily planned,

I had, I truly had planned to hold your hand and walk as we grew old,

I had planned, I truly had to pull you close to protect you from the cold,

All the way to Asia and back I watched a star I called our star for so long,

And tonight, the night of my “victorious” journey home I feel I don’t belong,

I’ve walked alone for so long now that I believe my mantra may be “alone”,

I’m no longer a shining star and our star has fallen or has it never shone?

Despair is in the night air and my sobs have slowed to but a childlike cry,

I understand my beautiful angel and perhaps someday you’ll tell me why,

Didn’t it feel right to you when I pulled you tight against my beating chest,

I am alive today because of loving you and because of you I did my best,

Yet as I walk thinking of family rejection, your rejection, and country too,

I wished I could return to you, we must be careful what we wish for its true,

The brutality I endured in the red hands was my ticket to freedom I thought,

And here I walk so alone that I feel I could disappear and easily be forgot,

I have moments of elation as I think “yet I am alone, it is I that had the kiss”,

My heart quickens to beat hard and fast as it did last year in heaven’s bliss,

All I want to be is whatever I have to be to be loved by you until time’s end,

A desperate dream? And today I am but a lonely warrior that will never mend,

I am hanging by a thread little girl, I have never been so afraid in my life,

How can I be so afraid after I endured so much brutality and war’s strife?

Although I walk my vessel is adrift as I search the heavens for a sign of you,

I feel a flickering glow deep inside as if you just thought of me, I hope it’s true.

The end, by Pat.  Written October 10, 1969 at 23:45