M. I. A.

M. I. A.
By Mark Spencer

The date was nineteen and sixty nine,
A soldier wrote a girl named Caroline,
The VC were starting to close in,
He wasn't sure when he could write again.

But there was something he had to say.
Three words he should have said before this day.
He poured out his heart on every line,
Then finished with "I love you Caroline".

The letter arrived one winter's day,
Weeks after she heard he was MIA.
And her tears stained the page as she read,
For in her heart she knew that he was dead.

He had disappeared without a trace;
Lost somewhere in that God forsaken place.
The Army said he might not be found,
So an empty box was placed in the ground.

Then she tried to move on with her life,
And she became a mother and a wife.
But each year she visited his tomb,
Around the time the flowers were in bloom.

This went on for nearly thirty years;
Yet no amount of time could dry her tears.
She would pray beside his empty grave:
"How could this be the fate of one so brave?"

Then one day, in nineteen ninety nine,
A phone call sent a shiver down her spine.
While breaking ground just south of Hung Yen,
Some workers found the bones of seven men.

One of those men was her soldier boy,
And after he was shipped back from Hanoi,
They honored each MIA who served,
Then buried him the way that he deserved.

If you call America your home,
From Tampa to Oahu and to Nome.
Don't forget the men still MIA.
And pray to God that they come home one day.