May 2017
It never stopped as they came at us day and night and they knew every move we made because the surrounding jungles were filled with them and as we thought we were hunting them, in reality we were the ones hunted and as they watched us set up for the night, the enemy would try to fulfill a single purpose: to **** me and my fellow Marines that made up the deadliest Marine combat unit operating in the ASHAU Valley (Valley of Death) at that time in 1969.
Arriving in Vietnam I discovered that it was very different than the nightly news reports that I watched from my Hotel room in Alaska and that the American public watched safely at night in their homes, and strange as it may seem I remember watching Marines walking through the rice paddies while the announcer was announcing the number of KIA's and I was thinking, maybe that's where I should be. Be careful what you think!!
Nothing could have prepared me ( a 20 year old "hippie"drafted and taken off the streets of the 60's ) for what I was about to face and what I was about to have to do in order to make it home on my feet and not in a body bag.
Trained to be a 20 year old killing machine by the United States Marine Corps, I did what I had to do to arrive home on my own two feet but it
would change my life forever and I didn't know it until 40 years later.
The adrenaline rush that came after each ****, and the more kills you recorded the more you got off and the more power you had and the
more you wanted to **** some more and it became an addiction and this
was suddenly gone when I got home and I reacted by covering my fear
with humor but 40 years after I knew something was terribly wrong with
me as I listened to reports of 22 Veterans a day, 24/7 committing suicide and at first I didn't understand why until one day I was thinking about different ways to die.
The physical pain had set in along with mental scars that would not go away as I thought about Vietnam every day as I began entertaining ways to die to get off this miserable train of thought and all the VA would do is to give me a PTSD disability pension and prescribe pills for the pain and during all those years it became clear that I was going nowhere and had become invisible to the world so why should I not go ahead and do the same as those 22 a day.
2017 and I am still here but I still think about Vietnam every day but I choose to write to keep my mind away from those days in the jungles shooting anyone I saw and these days I write for those 22 a day that can no longer deal with what they had to do and crossed that fine line between life and suicide that is so very close for me but for some reason I stand tall and am proud of my service to my country and feel sorry for those who will never know the depth of a Veterans pride and if I am still alive when you read this poem it is because someone drove home the fact that they actually cared whether I lived or died and that they actually appreciated what I did so many years ago in that far away jungle but that place is still on my mind every day and probably will be until the day I die and that is all I have to say on this Memorial Day.
Jon York 2017
Kilo 3/5
Vietnam 69- 70
Arriving in Vietnam I discovered that it was very different than the nightly news reports that I watched from my Hotel room in Alaska and that the American public watched safely at night in their homes, and strange as it may seem I remember watching Marines walking through the rice paddies while the announcer was announcing the number of KIA's and I was thinking, maybe that's where I should be. Be careful what you think!!
Nothing could have prepared me ( a 20 year old "hippie"drafted and taken off the streets of the 60's ) for what I was about to face and what I was about to have to do in order to make it home on my feet and not in a body bag.
Trained to be a 20 year old killing machine by the United States Marine Corps, I did what I had to do to arrive home on my own two feet but it
would change my life forever and I didn't know it until 40 years later.
The adrenaline rush that came after each ****, and the more kills you recorded the more you got off and the more power you had and the
more you wanted to **** some more and it became an addiction and this
was suddenly gone when I got home and I reacted by covering my fear
with humor but 40 years after I knew something was terribly wrong with
me as I listened to reports of 22 Veterans a day, 24/7 committing suicide and at first I didn't understand why until one day I was thinking about different ways to die.
The physical pain had set in along with mental scars that would not go away as I thought about Vietnam every day as I began entertaining ways to die to get off this miserable train of thought and all the VA would do is to give me a PTSD disability pension and prescribe pills for the pain and during all those years it became clear that I was going nowhere and had become invisible to the world so why should I not go ahead and do the same as those 22 a day.
2017 and I am still here but I still think about Vietnam every day but I choose to write to keep my mind away from those days in the jungles shooting anyone I saw and these days I write for those 22 a day that can no longer deal with what they had to do and crossed that fine line between life and suicide that is so very close for me but for some reason I stand tall and am proud of my service to my country and feel sorry for those who will never know the depth of a Veterans pride and if I am still alive when you read this poem it is because someone drove home the fact that they actually cared whether I lived or died and that they actually appreciated what I did so many years ago in that far away jungle but that place is still on my mind every day and probably will be until the day I die and that is all I have to say on this Memorial Day.
Jon York 2017
Kilo 3/5
Vietnam 69- 70
