Topic: This Soldier Cries

[Gambler]

Quote:

I am curious, though, how he contracted diabetes from being in Vietnam? I have an interest in it as a "prediabetic", which runs in my family. It's not contagious, and as far as I know can't be 'contracted' so much as sort of inevitably developed if your body has that inclination and/or it is exascerbated by poor eating habits.    

I'm not certain exactly all the details, but I found the following links:

 Air Force Study Suggests Agent Orange, Diabetes Link

 VA-Agent Orange

 

[Taldren_Erin]

That's very strange -- thanks for the link. Interesting reading.  

[Uss_Defiant]

Dulce Et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen
First Published in 1921

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.


One of my fav. poems
 

[KOTH-Steel Claw]

Thanks Gambler.