I stroll down the ramp underneath the tower for the Atlantic Theater.

The polished stone is hot to my touch.

Fountains blast high into the sky.

Eyes closed,

I turn around in London,

Luftwaffe planes blot out the sun.

Bombs rain upon the banks of Thames.

I stand before a curved wall,

with four thousand stars mounted on its surface;

each one holds the stories of a hundred men.

Eyes closed,

I can see a jet of flames coming out of the HMS Hood,

as hundreds of sailors drown in the icy waters of the Denmark Strait.

To dark silhouettes lurk in the distance:

Bismarck and Prinz Eugen.

I cross the Urals,

traverse the steppe,

and soar over the Yellow Sea.

I’m just in time to see two massive clouds,

sprouting out of the ground like mushrooms,

red and yellow with destruction.

Eyes open.

From my perch in the Pacific Theater,

I look out over the entire memorial,

and I see the world.

From the blood stained fields of France,

to the freezing taigas of Russia.

From the ruins of Dresden,

to the corpse littered fields of Manchuria.

Spilled blood alway has a story.