Some and None

How was that exhilaration when bombs and bullets tore up flesh and bone?
When the blood and brains of fellow soldiers ripped lightning through the stinking air?
When battle-bent and heated weapons finally cooled to rest
so you could nod in mud until the next assault shook you
in that frozen foxhole nightmare world of screaming death?
You were a subject imprisoned there, wondering when, not if, death would come,
your fear speeding faster than any increment of time might measure.
And even when the experiment ended, and you miraculously lived,
that hyper-vigilance would last a lifetime.
Your sleep would be shattered forever
with a horror bred by some omnipresent unseen enemy,
until that final time you lay down your weary head,
braver than you might ever have dreamed for surviving
so long after all the celebration and praise were done