174th Assault
Helicopter Company


DOLPHINS & SHARKS


IF YOU ARE ABLE

By: Major Michael Davis O’Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam


If you are able
save for them a place
inside of you.
And save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have taught you
with their dying,
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.