An Email to my fallen brothers.

Write a blog entry about the person you sent your poem and how they reacted to it.

            Poetry is a hard thing to get into unless you have a clear understanding of what it is being said. I have read many poems, some been sad and gloomy and others bright and happy. Today I read a poem that describe the years a lived in the military, out there with other just like me who we learned to call brothers and sisters. The poem I decided to email, no to one person but instead to a large amount of people I keep in contact with, was “Driven across many nations,” by Gaius Valerius Catullus and translated by Charles Martin. To my fallen brothers in arms who had fought in war with me an e-mail to their now maybe forgotten accounts been send. To those who were lucky enough like me to return home safe, emails been send too. I know that to those who read my email a tear or two might have come to their eyes. In my platoon, I was the youngest there for the youngest brother. To my oldest brothers who are still out there my email [will let them know that I will never forget the fallen brothers that we all have.

Driven across many nations, across many oceans,

   I am here, my brother, for this final parting,

to offer at last those gifts which the dead are given

   and to speak in vain to your unspeaking ashes,

since bitter fortune forbids you to hear me or answer,

   O my wretched brother, so abruptly taken!

But now I must celebrate grief with funeral tributes

   offered the dead in the ancient way of the fathers;

accept these presents, wet with my brotherly tears, and

   now & forever, my brother, hail & farewell.