The old men at the VFW

bar never talk about it with
anyone else, the people
who weren't there, the ones
who wouldn't understand a
goddamned thing, because none
of those people
saw the frozen blood on
the torn bodies of the GIs
that the Waffen SS had gunned
down near the edge of the forest.
It was in that nightmare December, when
you had to cling to the walls of the
burning houses to keep the cold
from eating you alive.
The ones who've never been there
would ask why you made the next Germans
you captured walk barefoot in the snow
until their feet became solid, made them
walk until their toes began to fall off, made
them walk despite their gravel voiced pleas
for mercy, made them walk until the
surgeons at division had to amputate their
blackened Kraut feet.
It was a different place.
It was a lifetime ago.
It was between them and the men
they had captured.
They knew the deal.
And no one else can say
that they would have let those
Germans put their boots on
if they had been in the place
of the men who now sat
drinking beer and talking about
the ball game.