The troops are worn out,
the Army stretched thin,
we’re recruiting delinquents,
the old and the dim.

We got rid of the gays,
to preserve the troops’ purity .
Even those who spoke Arabic,
no matter how fluently.
(Mistakes will be made,
for lack of translation.
But isn’t that better
than eternal damnation?)

We’re telling the soldiers
“One more tour of duty.”
The program’s called “stop loss;”
it might cause mutiny.

The Humvees are patched
with armor homemade,
that won’t stop the bombs
or rocket grenades.

Veterans are stricken
with nightmares and fears.
Some find no escape from
their dreams or their tears.

It’s no longer a war;
it’s called occupation.
But we don’t seem to know
how to rebuild a nation.

We’re good with artillery
and planting land mines.
But what we can’t do
is win hearts and minds.

The lessons of history
seem lost on our leaders,
who don’t seem to be scholars,
but careful poll readers.

There are those we must judge
for their lies and their crimes
and the grief they have caused
in these sad and dark times.

How many years
will we take to recover
from this ill-planned debacle
and it’s not even over?
It will take Iraq longer,
from all the blood spilled,
from the wounds we inflicted--
their country, we killed.

Holding him in my arms.
I don’t know his name.
He wasn’t in my unit.
He was just another face smeared with blood, sweat, dirt and god knows what else.
He would end up being another boy going back home to his mom, but not at her door step with flowers and balloons.
But at her door step in a brown box, followed by wilting flowers and cards, that she never wanted to get.

My ears have become numb to the screaming, piercing through the smoke, caused by the  bombs dropping around me.
Now I’m focused on his brown eyes.
His eyes were the color of rich soil. The power of life surging through it, yet only if the sun shines on it perfectly.
But, by God, there is no sun shining today.
His brown eyes.
His brown eyes of determination.
The eyes that followed the stroke of his hand when he signed up for this.
The eyes that scanned his families face one last time before he boarded the plane.
The eyes that won’t be there for his mother in comfort when the sergeant comes knocking on her door.
The eyes that won’t see her collapse on the floor, cursing God for letting her son go. Were her prayers never heard?

I look down from his eyes, once full of warmth, now stone cold, like the Statue of Liberty on a January day in Manhattan.
He wears a gold cross around his neck. I’ve never been religious but I say a prayer to the Big Man in the clouds for him.

These green and brown colors that cover his body, like mine, are normal. Once they kick you off that helicopter, the day when you are hit with the fact that this is real, they seem to give you a pair of goggles that changed your vision to brown and green. To make you block out the real world.
As if you would forget it.
But you do.

I don’t know how long I’ve been here, but long enough to hear a booming voice screaming “Get the hell out of here!” I don’t know if it was God or my lieutenant, but I didn’t move a muscle.
I sat there continuing to hold this boy, this man. He seemed no more than 20 years old, yet he was driven to serve and his years were cut short. Too short.

All of the sudden an arm grabbed ahold of me and yanked me away. Screaming into my hear something I can’t comprehend. My legs follows but my eyes continue to be locked on the motionless body.

I didn’t even know his name.

19 July 1943

Amid the wreckage of a bomb-blown street
In prayer among the smoke and stench of death
A man in anguish kneels and begs of Heaven
Mercy upon the broken people of God
Amid the wreckage of humanity
The blessings of a saint, like incense, drift
Into the hidden places of each soul  
The healing peace of God amid the ruins
Amid the wreckage of a bomb-blown street
Amid the wreckage of humanity

They've given all as war raged on,
   they gave their best each day;
They fought to free each one of us,
   to see 'ole glory wave!

They stood so strong, so proud and tall,
   our freedom to defend;
That son or daughter, mom or dad,
   that husband, wife, or friend!

Though young or old, some rich or poor,
   each answered beckon call;
They fought to let our freedom ring,
   each soldier gave their all!

The ones that fell, who now have passed,
   who paid the bigger price;
Left loved ones here with broken hearts,
   still lost in silent cries!

Then ones still here, so many ways
  the war has left it's mark;
With scars and shattered dreams they have,
   so many broken hearts!

I take the time to pen these words,
   to stand up to my feet,
Saluting every one who've fought,
   the few, OUR BRAVE ELITE!!

Mid Watch, But Without a Watch

Guarding an empty clothesline until four
With Springfield rifle at right shoulder arms
And sometimes something else: left shoulder arms
Because some NCO is sure to pass

And yelp about the proper rifle carry;
Until he does, the solitude is sweet
The San Diego night all damp and still
The recruit thinks and dreams, but dare not speak

While being trained for combat in Viet-Nam
Guarding an empty clothesline in the night

Pupils Fixed and Dilated

He was not permitted to die in peace
The only mercy granted was release
From fear, and mortars falling from the sky
There was no possibility of saying goodbye
And the river water stank, as did the night
His end was as flickering as the light
Pale gaspings, a fluttering pulse, dead sweat
D5W, battle dressings, and yet
The only mercy was in his release
He was not permitted to die in peace

The War Correspondent

A helicopter skeetered bravely in
And pitched and yawed against the enemy fire
That wasn’t there.  The manliest of men
Descended unto us in flawless attire

His tailored khaki suit was starched and pressed
Its creases as sharp as a Ka-bar knife
Never was a reporter more perfectly dressed
For getting the news while risking his life

The C.O. sped him past our positions
And hustled him into the T.O.C.1
To ensure each noun and preposition
Would be written for the greater good, you see

Much ink and Scotch were undoubtedly spilled
In air-conditioned comfort, no heat or mud;
With scripted heroics his notebook was filled
No need to stain his suit with his precious blood

After an hour he was hustled back
To Saigon for an evening reception
After he wrote of a great attack
And wired New York his immaculate deception

A helicopter skeetered bravely out
And yawed and pitched against a ******’s shot
That wasn’t there.  A great Communist rout?
There’s more than one kind of jungle rot


1Tactical Operations Center - command bunker, often air-conditioned.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

           An American Legion Meeting

O let us sit, our coffee cups to hand
And discharge half-remembered boot camp yarns
As ragged volleys of camaraderie
Blasted through well-defended hearing aids

O let us not raise funds for this or that
Through weekend fish-fries in a parking lot
Or catalogue good deeds inflicted on

Those

For whom our kindness is a border breached

O let us sit, our coffee cups to hand
And remember again the Vam Co Tay

Military Bill -your solid soul hold still,
Flashes, pings, cracks, echoes…
And solid soul hold still,
And solid soul hold still,
Our military Bill,

The war it grows, the war it grows,
And military Bill,
Your solid soul holds still.
Solid soul hold still.
Our military Bill,

Flashes, pings, cracks, echoes…
And solid soul hold still.
And solid soul hold still.
Our military Bill,

Solid soul hold still.
Solid soul hold still.

Our military Bill,
Solid soul of Bill,

Of military bill,
Our Military Bill…

Grandpa Tinker died a few years after I was born. I'm told he met me before he left though I was still asleep then. Lulled in a cradle, in a peace made possible by men like him. A Marine Corp officer stationed at Pearl Harbor who awoke to the sound of shouts on a day the world would never be allowed to forget. Mother said he never spoke a word about the war. Maybe that was his way of forgetting; his gift to my mother's generation was to bury that pain. He let it die inside so the fear, the anguish, the terror could not touch the ones he loved. The world gave him something he could not forget, something so painful he buried it in his heart with the memory of fellow marines and sailors in watery graves.

Grandpa Harry was a gunner on a B-29. The son of orthodox Jews, a first generation American born in New York. When he was stationed in Texas he met a young W.A.V.E. who would become my grandma. They couldn't wait for the war to end before getting married. When Granpa Harry was shot down over the Burma theatre they sent grandma a letter. Heartbroken and desperate she prayed. He and the survivors of his crew were picked up weeks later in the jungle, but not before contracting maleria. They went on to have 8 children, 3 their own and 5 adopted. Grandma always loved children. She became a school teacher. Grandpa Harry died before I was born, the world gave him something he could not forget either.

I do not like to think of the war as a battle between nations of this world. Good and evil do not fight under banners of nations, they have no borders, no anthems, only memories. They fight and die on battlefields of hearts that have buried hate, pain, and terror. My grandparents' hearts are memorials. Gleaming white tombstones on a field I cannot see, and cannot forget.