Poem: Refugees: Korea, 1951

By Ralph Kelly

Where are you going, my little friend,

What, nowhere to go?

No shoes on your feet,

Cold in the snow.

Where are your parents, my little waif,

Well, somewhere up north,

And dead, you suppose,

What is life worth?

I have nothing to give you, my little friend,

I have no help for you,

But you'll understand,

A veteran, too.

Why can't I stay, little comrade,

What keeps us apart?

This gun on my shoulder,

The shame in my heart.

[Ralph Kelly was a volunteer in the Australian Army in Korea. He wrote this poem during his second year about starving orphans begging in the pelting snow in Pusan.]

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