Author's Note: Day is certainly done in Vietnam... for the sun has long since set on our military involvement in that country. Yet the sun has not set on the stories that continue to unfold, born in Vietnam, unfurling yet in the hearts of men. Countless dramas continue to be played in the hearts of veterans and their families even today... this very minute! For truly, "The Nam" affected generations of the living, dead, and yet unborn; it will be a long time before the note Vietnam plucked on time's heart strings will sound its last...

So the demon Afrit still lives... today! In Afghanistan! This Satanic minion, still breathing his fiendishly putrid breath, rides hard on heels of right and light, stirring about devilish wind, yet tonight! The picture on the right (above), is of a coalition soldier standing watch on yet another sunset, far, far away, supporting the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Afghanistan. And the beat goes on!

About Author... In 1966-67, Gary Jacobson served with B Co 2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry in Vietnam as a combat infantryman and is the recipient of the Purple Heart.

Gary, who resides in Idaho writes stories he hopes are never forgotten, perhaps compelled by a Vietnamese legend that says, "All poets are full of silver threads that rise inside them as the moon grows large." So Gary says he writes because "It is that these silver threads are words poking at me � I must let them out. I must! I write for my brothers who cannot bear to talk of what they've seen and to educate those who haven't the foggiest idea about the effect that the horrors of war have on boys-next-door."

Visit Gary Jacobson's site for more information

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