Unknown Soldier

[busker]

Unknown Soldier

you never spoke
of your loss

your younger brother
only a few miles away

dying on the other side
of a field in France

and you,
the lucky one?

buried with honors
in Arlington

me, left to pass on a story
I know so little of

May 13, 1940:  22 year old German soldier, Private Fridolin Becker, killed in action, Aringe-aux-Bois, France

Without the footnote, I'd have thought one brother died in WW1 on the German side, the other in WW2 on the US side (which would make the narrator quite old). But now it looks like the younger brother died in WW2, and the elder in....Vietnam? Iraq? 

Poignant.

Edit: I read your reply to Duke. Quite interesting. I find it interesting that so many German Americans fought against Germany. Wonder what they thought of it.

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I love the title. Unknown, because his family refused to talk about him.

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I love the title. Unknown, because his family refused to talk about him.