A New Poem from our Friend - Forrest Langley

If you would like to contact Forrest about his poetry or send him well-wishes, his email addres is forrest.langley@us.army.mil . He is on the far left in the picture, with his 3 purple hearts.

Ghosts that dance and play!

Combat soldiers eyes are wide today!
Bomb blasts make us look this way!
Friends and family seem so strange!
War has a way to effect soldiers change!

Are you crying?
Are you sane?
Are you dying?
Feel their pain!

My sensory perception sees effects of war.
Adrenaline rush multiplies the effect more.
Combat Ghosts that with us dance and play.
Haunting soldiers they just won’t go away.

Brain begins to rewire,
PTSD! Emotions on fire!
Iraq’s violent desire!
Hit IED tripwire!

Can’t shake the wars perceptions in my brain!
Will I leave Iraq? I am just a soldier slain!
Yesterday seems so many lifetimes away!
Traumatic brain damage makes it seem that way!

Soldiers crying!
Soldiers Insane!
Soldiers Dying!
Feel their pain!

Combat Soldiers back from war are on the edge today.
PTSD psychological stress unwanted ghosts do play
With emotions and the imaginations causing such disarray
Will soldier fully return to his family or in Iraq stay?

A living Soldier slain
Crying tears of pain
Alive! Yet dead! Not same.
Ghosts that drives insane!

Poem written and copyrighted by Forrest Langley


Documentary of thoughts on poem written by “WOUNDED SOLDIER”
Poem written by a Soldier who has Traumatic Brain Damage from being in 6 direct hits from IEDS on his humvee! I received several purple hearts for my injuries. These purple hearts now define who I am and the type person I was!

Documented feelings and a Poem written by a walking dead man.

Poem and feelings Written by Forrest Langley!

October 10, 2007 at 2:56 AM

You’re going to have to help me. The words full resolution rings a bell and I feel like a fool but what do you mean? Thoughts about poem! This is kind of embarrassing a guy with TBI writing poetry/ Common folk will probably laugh at my stupidity. Sometimes I feel so foolish! I can’t remember! Before went to war I studied all hours. I mean 8 to 12 hours and a lot of days I got carried away into my studies that I just couldn’t sleep. I wanted to absorb everything. But now I can’t remember what I read. When I see an article with beautiful words like Ambivalent, I remember the days when I knew such words and I have forgotten my vocabulary. I just seen the word and I had forgot it existed. Im insane! The person I was is dead and everyone knows. My wife, children, family, and friends! I wonder what they think. Do you know how hard that is! My wife was crying earlier tonight and she told me that when she saw me for the first time after coming back from Iraq wounded that her heart was broke because she knew the person I was would never exist again. I don’t know who I am. Im crazy huh! This is harder than I anticipated. People don’t understand why Im off the deep end or on the edge! I just am not up for foolishness of any kind. It is hard for me to leave the house. Have you ever just been lost! This is very very hard. It is as if I have been drunk since the second bomb blast. 10 minuets ago things that happened seemed like 20 years in the past. I hope everyday that I will come home from Iraq soon but I fear the bomb blasts killed me and yet I live. Dead yet still walking, still alive! This is amazing yet it is 100% true. You probably won’t understand this letter and I didn’t set out to write it at all. Feelings are weighing on me tonight. Crazy things! I ought to write a poem DEAD YET ON I LIVE! No one could understand it except people who are living in the world of what they term Traumatic Brain Injury. Bomb blasts will change your life. That is for certain. My God! Chat at ya later. Hope you don’t flip too badly. Later Wounded Soldier! Take care of yourself. Don’t be too hard on yourself it is not you fault. You just loved your nation enough to die for it. So be content: Chin up. Don’t let on.