"CHOSIN"
Where it all began, Chosin.
Even though more than fifty years have passed.
you would think
The visions of those frozen shell torn hills
Would be gone at last.
When their bugles blew, the vast, vast, advancing endless lines,
Their leader cries echoing throughout the mountain passes,
Across the valley floor.
"Marines tonight you die".
Why me?
Why was I one of the Chosen Few
to come out alive?
To remember forever more?
Some nights when it is clear and still,
I feel and remember,
The chill of the fight and the endless kill
On that wind blown, cold, cold hill.
The screams of pain,
and the agony of the dying.
Someone hollering Gung Ho, "Hold that Line!"
Bullets whizzing and whining through the night.
All around streaks of red fill the sky,
and burn till out of sight.
And even now there's no end to the night's endless fight,
that still fills my heart and mind with fright.
And in the grey dawn,
when their bugles blew,
and their forces withdrew;
as the smoke of the battle rose from the land,
there was nothing to do,
but sit or stand in awe,
while looking at the obscure shapes of frozen bodies of men,
laying witness to the horror of the battle you and your comrades just went through.
Of seeing comrades falling along the way,
helping you to live another day.
But heroes come and go so fast
that deeds of bravery never last,
Except within the hearts and mind of the men that walked
the hell of that hostile strange frozen land,
where it all began.
So far north east of the sun,
known as the Chosin,
The Chosen Few
Hoo-Ra to all!
SGT. J.A. DeSantis
USMC
