Hi, my name is Mike Silber. I'm from Three Lakes Wisconsin. I served as a Navy Medical Corpsman with Lima Company, 343^rd Marine Division, in I Corps Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam, in 1969.

When I came home from overseas, back to the States, I didn't quite realize what I wanted to do. I found a poem by Robert Service, he had written it after WW1. The title of it was "Michael" and as I read it I discovered that not only did the title but the poem and I also have quite a bit in common.

I'd like to read this poem to you now.

There is something in your face Michael, I seen it all the day;
There is something queer that wasn't there when first ye went away…
It's just the Army life, Mother, the drill, the left and right
That puts stiffenin' in your spine and locks your jaw up tight…

There's something in your eyes Michael and how they stare and stare—
Your looking at my now me boy as if I wasn't there…
It's just the things I've seen Mother, the sights that come and come,
A bit of broken bloody pulp, that use to be a chum….

There is something in your heart, Michael, that makes you wake at night,
And often when I hear you moan I tremble in me fright…
It's just the man I killed, Mother, a mother's son like me….
It seems he always haunting me, he'll never let me be….

But maybe he was bad Michael; maybe it was right
To kill an enemy you hate in a fair and honest fight…..
I did not hate at all, Mother, he never did me harm:
I think he was a lad like me who worked upon a farm.

And what's it all about Michael, why did we have to go,
A quiet, peaceful lad like you, and we were happy, so?…
It's him that's up above Mother, it's him that sits and rules;
We got to fight the wars they make, it's us that are the fools.

And what will be the end, Michael, and what's the use I say,
Of fightin' if whoever wins it's us that's got to pay?…
Oh, it will be the end, Mother, when lads like him and me,
That sweat to feed the ones above, decide that we'll be free….

And when will that day come, Michael, and when will fightin' cease,
and simple folks may till there soil and live and love in peace….
It's coming soon and soon, Mother. It's nearer every day.
When only men who work and sweat will have a word to say;

When all who earn their honest bread in every land and soil
Will claim the Brotherhood of Man, Comradeship of Toil.
When we the workers, all demand, "What are we fightin' for? …"
Then, then we'll end this stupid crime, the devil's madness --War.