Thank you Capp ... your words are a gift to me as well!

if a dead one would have you
wailing and wringing of the hands
they ain't worth longing for...
celebrate their lives
their gifts were many

*******That same day, on the other side of the wire *************

The machine guns stopped firing, the M16s were quiet after their deafening roar -- we caught our breath, grabbed a canteen, and laughed -- with the dead lying all around us, diving for cover when a few more rounds whistled through the air -- fired back, and laughed some more as we lay there side by side in the mud, having to look twice to see whether our friends were dead or alive.

Some of us didn't hear the laughter or anything else, for others, the laughter was the last we heard from them before the light left their eyes. [They didn't teach us how to close the eyes of our friends or how to survive after the battles]