

A Common Bond II

Poetry, Prose, and Song

By Participants of The Memorial Day Writers' Project

In Tribute to America's Veterans

1993-2011

Edited by Richard Epstein

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Published by MilSpeak Books

A Division of MilSpeak Foundation, Inc. (501c3)

http://www.milspeak.org

Copyright 2012 The Memorial Day Writers' Project/Richard Epstein

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

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Cover Image by Mark Raab

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Table of Contents

Preface

Clyde A. Wray

For Those Veterans Who Find It Difficult to Breathe

Through the Pain of Iraq and Afghanistan

How Long??? How Long???

Let the Eagle Fly

Futile Efforts of Every Veteran

May "He" Look Down Upon You Kindly

Edward Henry

Growing Up

I Call Them Brothers

I Am a Viet Nam Veteran

The Sniper

The Heart of the Matter

Mike McDonell

From the Wall

Spade Cooley's Zap-Momma

Making Peace with the Past

Dinner

Vince Kaspar

Enough Hugs

Bill's Candles

Headlines

3 a.m. on the Perimeter

Tom McLean

Aging Veteran

Spirits of the Wall

Living Only in Other's Dreams

We Were There

I Remember

Cathie (Henderson) Solomonson

Slow Dancing at the 24th Evac

But You Did, Dear Nance

For You, Bill

Richard Epstein & Rinnah Joy Henderson

Names on a Wall

That Polished Stone

Last Night I Saw

Doug Todd

American Hero

The Ballad of the New Frontier

A Shot in the Dark

Aftermath: The Answer

Richard Morris

Charlie

Digging a Hole

Bong Song Bridge

It's a Long Road to Hoe (Marching Song)

When's the Sun Gonna Shine at Camp Evans?

Charlie's Gone from Khe Sanh

Gretchen Sullivan

Brotherhood

The Eye

Oral History

Winter 1998

Thomas Brinston

patriotic pondering

eyes

War Person

wasteland

Pleiku Jacket

Mark Pankow & Patty Reese

Footsteps

For Those Who Also Serve

Martial Journey

Norah A. Burns

I Remember You

Time In Service

With Your Grace

J. Holley Watts

47W

Mind Games

Touch

Where Can I Find Them?

Hope Springs

My Grandfather's Story

My Uncle Van Louis's Story

V. K. Inman

For the Ungrateful Nation

For the History Teachers

Le Nam (2)

He Hated

Gerald "Rod" Kane

It's My Job

Gary Lillie

It Don't Mean Nothin'

Jim & David B

I Could Have Done Without You

I Wasn't a Grunt

Wayne Karlin

Memorial Day

Ron Capps

Deus ex Machina

William Carrington

Another Wall

Yesterday's Heroes

A Name on a Wall

About The Memorial Day Writers Project

About Sied Books

"Storyteller" Suellen Manning

Preface

From a Co-Founder

In 1993, two Vietnam veterans got together over coffee and founded The Memorial Day Writers' Project (MDWP)— a creative vehicle and venue for veterans and others who have been touched by war. The MDWP sets up a tent, rain or shine, and has encouraged and facilitated playwrights, poets, and home-grown balladeers within sight of the Vietnam Memorial ("the Wall"), every Memorial Day and Veterans Day since its founding. MDWP participants have also read their poetry and sang their songs at veterans' gatherings, college campuses, high schools, and libraries throughout the Washington, D. C. metropolitan area.

The prose and poems presented here represent a sampling from the many readings presented at the Wall. You may not agree with all that is said, you may not like all that is said; but these men and women speak the truth—their truth, and offer a look inside our fellow veterans—the men and women who served their country, as well as their sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, husbands, and wives. Read slowly. Listen carefully.

In a book with this magnitude of emotional output, the reader may be hard pressed to go back time and time again and complete the whole work, but read it all you must. What lies before you is the future of your sons and daughters: the scars and memories that will be carried for a lifetime if we can't find better ways to solve our problems other than with war.

This eloquent anthology, carefully stitched together by fellow veteran Dick Epstein, contains poetry, prose, and songs written by mostly non-professionals. What you will find herein is raw, heartfelt, and moving. At times, your heart will bleed but your soul will smile. In many ways, with each emotional tug at your heart, you will be paying tribute to all members of the military, the authors, those who remember, and to those who gave all! I think that is the very least we can do.... read and remember.

Clyde A. Wray

Co-founder of MDWP

www.clydeawray.com

"Father and Son" Jessica Lee

From the Editor

In 2002, I published A Common Bond, a 150-page anthology of poems and photos by both American and Vietnamese veterans. The anthology presents selected poems to represent the many readings heard as part of The Memorial Day Writers' Project, which takes place not far from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Since then, many new authors of poetry and prose, singer/songwriters, and playwrights have come and gone. Now we're hearing from veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. This eBook is a tribute to all of our veterans. May we learn from the past and re-learn how to live in peace. As each returning veteran puts down the tools of war, let them raise their voices and take pen in hand.

Special thanks to Mark Raab, Suellen Manning, Jessica Lee, and Ken White for their wonderful photographs, Milspeak.org for this exciting opportunity, and to the all of the authors who voices may be heard in this publication.

Dick Epstein

Editor

dick_epstein@hotmail.com

"Qui Nhon Ammo Dump" Photograph by R. Epstein
Clyde A. Wray

Clyde volunteered for Vietnam. He arrived from Germany with 101st Airborne Division and was assigned to the 199th Light Infantry Brigade 1967-1969. He makes his living as poet, author, playwright, and director. Clyde has published several books of poetry and resides with his family in Canada. Clyde is co-founder of The Memorial Day Writer's Project. You can hear and read more of Clyde's work at www.clydeawray.com
Clyde A. Wray

For Those Veterans Who Find It Difficult to Breathe

Through the Pain of Iraq and Afghanistan

He is worse off now

it's the pictures of the dead

of his long lost friends

which light and live

deep inside of his head...

those shadows on the walls

that call out his name

want him to remember the sorrow

the grief

war's destruction its pain...

He's worse off now

though the years have flown by

now afraid again to close his eyes

never again did he want to see

men in foxholes cry

or that night-burst

that once turned a midnight sky bright...

He worse off now

from the images he sees

of flag draped caskets marched:

eloquently

silently

solemnly

across the television screen...

He is worse off now

than the years that are behind

he weeps daily

for the needless loss

the deaths of all those that die

in the opulent spring of their lives...

Now again

he must learn to breathe

through the sadness and the ever present grief

"Cholon" R. Epstein

Clyde A. Wray

How Long??? How Long???

How long the bombs

that foul the air

how long the anguish

wrenching cries

mothers to suffer the dreadful lies

how long to bleed tears...how long?

How long the struggle

with the foe

to kill families we don't know

how long the tracks to ride across their backs...

how long...?

How long to listen to the serpents tongue

that gives false hope

when he knows there's none...?

How long to duty

under tarnished flag

where once pride flourished

now that's long past... how long?

How long no sweet song sung

of country's honor

of hope and love...how long?

How long for hope of glory

where there's none

none to make

if it's said there is then its fake...how long?

How long the populace quiet tone

to watch this evil go on and on...how long?

How long ???
Clyde A. Wray

Let the Eagle Fly

(To my Afghan Brothers)

That's right

revenge is sweet, better

served with bread

bomb em!

Bomb em

bomb em

until they're dancing in the streets

bomb em!

bomb em

bomb em

until they change their minds

let the steel black wings whisper

in the darkest hour of night

drop:

honey

barley

wheat

rye

Bomb em

bomb em

by the tons

hallelujah

hundreds, thousands

of sortie runs...

By parachute

drop

those bombs

vials of medicine

they won't break

children will quit their belly aching

Fill the skies of blue

block out the sun

carpet bomb

with flour too

add a touch of color

corn just to see whose yellow...

Let the eagles fly

bomb em

till we see light in their eyes

"Cholon 2" R. Epstein

Clyde A. Wray

Futile Efforts Of Every Veteran

Tried to lock it up, hide it

in the darkest recesses of the mind

tried to bury it cleverly, by not giving it light

tried to forget it ever happened, that it cut like a knife

that it sent waves of fear, that it turned blood to ice...

Tried to slam the door on it, to keep it inside

then much to quickly day turns into night

tried not to remember the names, the faces

those sunny and youthful manly embraces,

they keep coming back, like someone had unearth them

Tried to pray for the repose of their souls,

that their God would tell them what their death was for

tried to think that their spirits live in beautiful tall trees

hear the sound of their voices, when the wind blows through leaves

they're rooted to mother earth the way every man should be

Tried to lock it up, hide it

but then what for

humanity hasn't learned, yet again another war

once again the doors ajar

its yesterday all over, you haven't gotten far

"Brothers" Mark Raab

Clyde A. Wray

May "He" Look Down Upon You Kindly

In praise of soldiers

everywhere around the globe

who thinks he fights for right

you know it as your darkest day

for which you'll forfeit your life...

your country stands behind you

they'll praise you to the hilt

right or wrong they'll rush to pin

a medal on you

shortly after you're killed...

praise to the soldiers

who think they fight for right

your country ask you to question not

but only to guard its light

they'll heap upon you honors

a touch of glory

a hint of fame

but if you ask why you murder

your name they shall defame...

praise to the soldiers

who think they fight for right

who are battle worn and weary

whose home is no where in sight

to plow ahead in fear and dread

in killing fields: morning noon and night

praise to the everywhere soldiers

who think they fight for right

may He look down upon you kindly

as you sit in your foxhole tonight...
Edward Henry

Ed joined the Navy as a Corpsman in 1961 and served with various Marine infantry units of the 1st and 3rd Marine Divisions. He traveled extensively throughout Asia and served in Viet Nam from 1965 to 1966. As vice president of Military Historical Tours, Inc. of Alexandria, VA., he led countless trips back to Viet Nam in the past ten years. Ed continues to write poetry, is working on a novel, and has published several articles on the legacy of the Viet Nam Generation.
Edward Henry

Growing Up

The other boys laughed at me

As a child,

Because I wouldn't play in

Any of their reindeer games

Of push or shove, kick and punch,

Organized violence in an ugly place,

Football, street fights, any reason

To hurt, was not my idea of a way to grow up.

I collected butterflies and snakes,

Took my paints and sketch book to the woods,

And learned wilderness traits,

Found beauty in music and the

Power of the voice, and dreamed

Of places I'd rather be

Than the Valleys of Hate

In western P.A.

At age 18 my life took a turn

And I found myself at sea in a

Company of Marines,

Rifled to the hilt, armed to the teeth,

Solitary men on a different bent,

Unified to kill or be killed in

The name of a cause...

Give it a name.

The boyhood games were gone,

And the dreams of beauty, too,

Nothing pretty about the taking of life,

Or the changes I was going through.

Time to grow up. Time to get mean.

Viet Nam– two words, not one,

And two worlds at odds with

The rest of the universe,

And men's perceptions of

What was real, and what was not.

Body counts and dollars and cents

Were the only accounting that

Finally struck home, in a U. S. policy

Totally out of control. "You're a stranger here,

So don't come home... Go die in some hole

In Viet Nam, or wander my streets till there's

No where to go...

"You lost the game with a winning hand,

So don't come home. We don't want you here."

The bells never tolled for the lost brigades,

The souls of the dead or the living dead,

The Elephant had been brought down to

Its knees by the piss-ant.

And I was in the ranks

Of those who took the blame.

We were stripped of home,

And stripped of love,

Mentally dismissed from the Lines,

And into silence.

The Silence of the Heart.

The Silence of the Truth.

The Silence of Defeat.

"Inside a C123" R. Epstein

Edward Henry

I Call Them Brothers

I want you to hear these men

That talk about the comedy

Of life.

And the times that shattered personal

Dreams, and the dreams of loves

Never fulfilled.

I want you to hear about the

Depths of hell played out in a

Young man's days of surviving

In a terrible place.

And if that's not enough, then listen

On for the story's conclusion,

Tramped out on a stage

For the world to know...

WAR SUCKS!!

And the real heroes will tell you

That much, as they quietly sip

Coffee beside you at the corner cafe,

And try to forget the Satanic

35mm frames that play nightly

In their heads.

Listening is the easy part,

No payment due, no ticket price,

Quiet understanding, yes,

A slight nod forward of the

Bobbing head, and then lock

Their eyes into your heart.

Accept them, and then maybe

In your uncommitted soul

Decide to love them, as they

Stand before you like naked children.

Some innocent, some not,

But begging forgiveness all the same

For answering a call and

Doing their duty.

I want you to hear these men,

And savor the ugliness along with

The spectacles of beauty.

Draw back the tears of God

And usher in life!

Life, joy, and scream for another

Walk in the sun! For these chosen few,

And an invitation to all, the personal

Drug of choice is creativity!

Courtesy of Vietnam Picture Archive @ibiblio.org

Edward Henry

I Am a Viet Nam Veteran

Every generation breeds a new kind of dog.

Our generation of kennel clubs

Turned out a real winner,

That broke the chain,

Turned on its master,

And gave him a lesson

On mistreating animals

Then snapped his wrist-bone,

Thank you very much!

Kick a dog long enough, and he'll teach you

A thing or two about being a dog.

Don't love a dog and he'll take to the woods,

Or run in the streets. He'll delight in fucking

Other dogs during the full moon, he'll infect

The finer breeds with a sense of the truth

Of what you've finally made him...

Your basic run-of-the-mill dog.

You shouldn't hate him for what he is.

After all, you bred him. He's yours.

To love, hate, or destroy.

"I Corps" R. Epstein

Edward Henry

The Sniper

I'll wait for you...

And I'll kill you...

I'll wait as long as I have to.

I've waited a long time just for this moment

to make you dead, and make me a hero

in the eyes of the Committee. I've practiced

many times for this moment.

I'll wait for you...

And I'll kill you...

I'll shoot you for every one of us you've murdered.

For every old woman you people have butchered...

I can wait through hatred. I can wait through rain.

I'll wait because I hate you, and not because

I've been told to do this. I can wait,

because I WANT TO DO THIS, I'll shoot you

in the head if I can, so you and I can end this.

And then maybe you'll leave our country,

and I can go home, too.

I'll wait for you...

And I'll kill you...

One shot is all I have between your death and my life.

And you'll lose, because my hate is deeper than your hate.

I can wait for hours and days and nights and insects and storms

and heat and cold and I don't care what happens to me but I care

what happens to you because I care about seeing you die

in the sights of my weapon. I want to see the first blood,

your blood, and I want to make you pay for all the blood

of my people that you've spilled.

I'll wait for you...

And I'll kill you...

Before you even know it, I will have put my bullet in your head,

that will end your life, and end your existence in my homeland.

Finish it forever. One at a time if I have to, one bullet

slid into one chamber, and fired into one head, your head.

Your hated foreign, head!

I'll wait for you...

And I'll kill you...

"Ben Hoa" R. Epstein
Edward Henry

The Heart of the Matter

The heart of the matter will never be divulged.

Too deep, too true, for any understanding.

Only glimmers appear in the depth of the night,

Or when I awake and you're not there.

Words are a failure when the spirit speaks,

Pitiful human utterance better left unspoken.

Quiet and restful the moon in Dong Ha,

Silver reflections dance among the rice fields,

And let me know in an instant of the

Heart beside me.

The heart of the matter told me to change,

To accept who I am and the love within.

Two hearts in truth need a gate for the gifts,

That flow out like streams from the Annam Hills.

The Spirit delivers and we delight in each other,

Laughter, tears, pain, and healing.

Words are a failure when the spirit moves,

Two broken hearts to a mending place.

"Ca Mau" R. Epstein
Mike McDonell

Mike served as supply and logistics officer for Headquarters, Eleventh Marines, and as a duty officer and patrol leader with the First Marine Division's Northern Sector Defense Command from 1967-1968 in I Corps. He retired after thirty-four years of Federal service as a writer/editor and public information specialist. Mike lives with his wife Suellen and spends his time teaching, traveling, and writing. Mike is co-founder of The Memorial Day Writers' Project.
Mike McDonell

From the Wall

Xin Loy, Charlie

No sweat, buddy

Miss you, honey

Love you, Mom

Guess I'll never catch up with you, Dad

Guess I'll always be nineteen

Heard the one about the Grunt and the NVA?

Grunt was sitting in his hole,

watching tracers stitch the dark

in red and green over the roar of incoming

and outgoing

Grunt yelled "Ho Chi Minh is a son of a bitch"

and not very far away a voice replied:

"LBJ is a running dog's bastard"

That's not all: the next day they find

the grunt and the NVA dead

in the middle of the road

locked in a bear-hug

and grinning at the magic moment

that the deuce and a half rolled over them,

at the very moment of their agreement

and celebration well before the pin-heads

and cookie-pushers had settled on the shape

of the negotiating table

True war story: circa 1967-68

First Marine Division TAOR I Corps RVN

It may have happened on the Cua Viet

or at the mouth of the A Shau

the Hai Van or the Dinh Ban Passes come to mind

or maybe it was Nui Loc Son in April during Union

or a month later during Union II

but it sure as hell happened by Tet of 68

when the Fifth took Hue and the boys on both sides

took shit at Khe Sanh

Truth be told, it might have even happened to a doggie

in Cholon by the race track (just him and Nguyen)

or an airman, or a sailor, or a nurse

Could have been a Donut Dolly

and all her counterparts,

they all had names like Van, and Tran, and Trung,

and Nam but only the Ghost Gunny knows for sure

and he's not talking any more today.

But maybe tonight...

"Visiting a Friend" Mark Raab
Mike McDonell

Spade Cooley's Zap-Momma

Spade Cooley was draped across an Okinawa O Club divan,

his left leg in a dirty cast from his crotch to his toes,

and around his neck was tied a sweat-rag,

its checkered pattern faintly seen through caked black.

Hey, man, it's been a while since Quantico

with the Zoomer and the guys.

Like the tie? How you been?

Me, I'm surviving; waiting to sky--

I di-di in the morning,

back Stateside to Oaknoll

so they can work some more on my laig.

Caught some north of Con Thien,

got some on "Operation Buffalo";

that's what they call it.

We called it "The Three Gates of Hell."

It started as a patrol--

battalion size, one-nine.

That was my home-- First Battalion, Ninth Marines.

We were north of the Trace

on the Z at a spot they called The Market Place.

They ambushed us,

the company,

and the whole battalion.

Why we call it Three Gates of Hell?

'Cause we fought to get in,

we got ambushed again and again,

and we fought to get out

and they wouldn't let us, man.

We left the dead and came on back for them

with tanks

and they fell on us like rabid dogs;

they walked among us wounded

and popped us like ticks.

We exploded in blood

but we got some, too:

dig two graves--

one for him

and one for you.

Don't mind if I do!

Mine's a Stinger--

cool menthol going down,

then exploding brandy

on an empty stomach.

Fire for effect, man.

All I need's a Thai stick

to finish the job.

Attention on deck!

The Officer of the Day

regrets to report

that Major General Bruno Hochmuth,

Commanding General, 3rd Marine Division,

was killed in action when his Huey

exploded in mid-air today.

Bet the pogues in graves

had fun getting him out of that

rotary bladed C-rat can

and ready for his flight home.

He should have been with us;

on line under the sun,

pushing out into the fields

of hard-packed brown and yellow stubble

towards the tree line and the hedgerow

where the bodies of our bros

lay scattered and bloated--

made in the shade,

but out of the sun.

Nguyen knew that we were coming

and when we squad-rushed forward,

he opened up and we went down,

digging deep with fingers, toes and chin

as deep as we could go

which wasn't far enough

'cause most of us were hit or dead before we fell.

I saw the one that got me--

actually, there were two.

A short AK burst from the crotch of an old banyan

missed the femoral but got the femur,

shattered it in two and put one through my knee-cap

as clean as a b-b through thin plate glass.

I lay there playing 'possum' with a dead-man's stare

while the sing-song boys laughed and giggled

and shot the wounded. I heard our screams

and moans cut short with a shot and heard

the bark of their officers and sergeants

ordering them forward, towards another

slaughter beyond our field.

I never took my dusty eyes off that banyan;

I saw the khaki figure slide down its trunk,

while the comrades pushed though the hedgerow behind me

and left me in silence feigning death.

Trotting toward me at carry-arms,

the figure was gracefully dodging the bodies

and making straight for me.

I saw the eyes; they saw mine.

They were not fooled.

And as the AK went from carry to assault,

I rolled and stitched the torso in red roses

and saw the long, black and shining hair

splayed in the sunlight, in the moment that lasts

forever, and above the eyes wide with wonder

and the round mouth yawning in surprise.

She went down hard, without a sound,

and in her hand, a black checked sweat-rag

which I tied around my leg to staunch the flow.

I watched her go. Now she lives in me

and I'll carry her just as she would have

carried me.

Stingers dripping from my cast,

oozing coolness. Sure, I'll lose the leg

but not here! I'll wait for Oaknoll

and join the crippled vets and live in Georgia

and think of her and how no woman ever

touched me like she did, and how she binds

and stanches the flow.

Like her black checked sweat-rag

dark with blood, she will live at the bottom

of my seabag memory. And rising up

in nightsweats, I'll remember

and she will live: my killer angel,

Co Zip

Zap Momma.

We'll dance the two-step

in fields of fire

and join the others,

the Walking Dead,

and live in now

and live in then;

I live in dread

of God.

Another Stinger?

"Vespa" R. Epstein

Mike McDonell

Making Peace with the Past

In Hue Cathedral, Pere Henri Phuoc

does the holy hand jive

and rolls his eyes

describing the Catholic fortress

in which we wander.

In sibilant, sing-song French

his hands flutter upward

toward the vaulted ceiling,

the celestial gateway,

while a I look down upon the floor

for bloody gore

and strain for staccato echoes

from thirty years past

during the American war.

At the Tien Mieu Pagoda, the successor of

Thich Quan Duc,

the famous flaming monk of Saigon,

ponders the question:

"Was Ho Chi Minh a Buddhist?"

He snickers in the dark and sips his tea.

"Of course he wasn't;

he was a Communist," he said.

But he had Buddha nature, I add hopefully.

Of course, Ananda, as do we all.
Mike McDonell

Dinner

I saw their names in concrete before ours were

carved in stone: Arnaud et Ugette

un marriage splendide— porquois?

Sait on jamais (one never knows)

1952.

The French bunkers lay like ancient boils

on either side of the Hoa Khan pass,

excised and pockmarked, burned

and defiled by men and monkeys.

Tigers ate them both,

or what was left,

after battles in the dark

between the primates.

Monkeys and Frenchmen

tasted very much the same.

In the dark

there was no difference,

only dinner.

Danny and Rhonda

together forever.

Peace and love

Alpha 1/5/1967.

Sait on jamais,

one never knows,

no difference,

only dinner.
Vince Kaspar

Vince served with the 4th Medical Battalion, 4th Infantry Division from 1968 to 1969 in Pleiku and An Khe, Viet Nam. He was a soldier, poet, teacher, and friend to all who knew him. Vince passed away in 1995.
Vince Kaspar

Enough Hugs

On Father's Day near the wall, a young woman saw

The insignia I wore and asked, "Were you with the Fourth Division?"

When I nodded "yes," she said, "My father was in the Fourth.

He was killed in 1970. Can I give you a hug for him— for Father's Day?"

I hugged her with a father's joy, though the tears blinded me.

A little bit of healing happened for both of us that day.

On Veterans Day near the Wall, a Gold Star Mother saw

The insignia I wore and asked me, "Were you in Vietnam"

When I nodded "Yes" she said, "Will you stand-in for my son

And give this old lady a hug?" I hugged her with a son's love,

Though the tears blinded me. A little bit of healing happened

For both of us that day.

In Canberra, at the dedication of the Australian Vietnam

Veterans Memorial, I saw an Aussie vet standing in the crowed,

Staring at the Memorial. I knew the look—

His body shook with emotion, the tears blinded him.

I put my arm around him and asked, "Are you all right?"

We hugged in the warmth of brothers and wept together

And I took off my insignia and pinned it on him.

A little bit of healing happened for both of us that day.

People ask me when the ghosts of Vietnam will finally

Be put to rest. The answer is simple—when there are

Enough open arms,

Enough open hearts,

Enough hugs to heal all the pain.
Vince Kaspar

Bill's Candle

The First Sergeant stood in the doorway for a long time,

Watching Bill. I'm sure he thought he was watching

Another G.I. high on drugs. I stayed close, ready to run

Interference if I had to, but glad when it wasn't necessary—

The Sergeant snorted, shook his head, and left the hooch

In disgust. I could have explained what Bill was doing,

But I don't think the Sergeant would have understood.

Bill and I had both been drafted, and each of us had left

Behind a bride when we went off to war. Friendships

Could be built on lesser things, especially in 'Nam—

But even I didn't know about the candle

For the first few months.

Every Saturday night at 9 o'clock, while the rest of us

Were chugging down beers at the movie, he'd stick

A lighted candle on his footlocker, lay on his bunk

in the dark, and stared at the flame. I found him

that way one night after looking all over camp for him.

I waited, wondering at 10 o'clock he stood up dazed,

Like a psychic coming out of a trance. He told me about it

As we as we sat and drank the warm beers I was carrying.

They'd figure out the time difference, and while Bill stared

At his candle in Vietnam, his wife was also staring at a candle

In a dormitory in Ohio.

"I can't explain it, Vince" he said,

"But I was with her. I really was—though I couldn't tell you

Where we were." What could I say? I believe him.

After that, I tried to be around when Bill lit his candle,

So that he and his wife would not be disturbed. Sometimes

Some guys would come back from the movie early,

And ask me, "Where's Bill?" "Don't bother him,"

I'd say. "He's in Ohio." And they'd laugh and walk away,

Making jokes about us drinking too much beer.

Because I was in love, I could believe him.

Maybe I just shared in his delusion—I don't know.

I know envied him.

In fact, one night I got a candle and tried it myself—

But it didn't work for me. Of course, I hadn't written

To my wife about it—I was afraid she'd think the war had

Finally robbed me of all sense. It didn't work for me,

But that proves nothing. Perhaps, like love, the miracle

Depended on both sides moving toward the center,

Moving gently by candlelight to a place where only

Souls can touch. For the rest of my life, I regret

My lack of faith in love.
Vince Kaspar

Headlines

Whether it's a drunken driver who's just crashed

And burned on the expressway, or a distraught husband

Who's just used a bread-knife to end his wife's adultery,

Or a nut who claims that aliens from the planet Pongo

Made him superglue the tails of those six puppies together,

Whenever something bad happens, someone always says,

"He hasn't been the same since he came home from Vietnam."

Whenever something bad happens,

the reporters fan out and interview everyone in sight.

And no matter what the story, eventually they all find the same person:

The fat-thin person,

The tall-short person,

The bald-headed, blond, brunette person,

The African-Asian-Caucasian person,

The person that claims that she is a relative,

That is a friend, the master of disguise

Who looks into the camera and says:

"He hasn't been the same since he came home from Vietnam."

Well, I'm tired of all that.

I think it's time to change the headlines,

To change the stories,

To change the captions.

Tomorrow, I'd like to open the paper and see

this headline on page 1.

Vietnam Vet stands in field of flowers, singing.

Birds flock around him as his old friend says:

"He hasn't been the same

since he came home from Vietnam."

Or:

Vietnam Vet acknowledges the value of human life--

Hugs every person he meets and blesses them.

His neighbors say:

"He hasn't been the same

since he came home from Vietnam."

Or:

Vietnam Vet watches the sun rise

Over a white-sand beach

And thanks God for the dawn of a new day,

Thanks God for the beauty all around him,

Thanks God for everything.

And his family says:

"He hasn't been the same

Since he came home from Vietnam."
Vince Kaspar

3 a.m. on the Perimeter

Night is the hand of a friend

Leading me to the ramparts

To search for quiet fires

Of purgation, like one of

A Chosen Few awaiting an

Anti-Christ who may not come.

What I fear is ghosts:

Aborted thoughts and children

Never born, dead friends

Not old enough to die,

And songs I did not hear

In the hearts of mutes;

And night is the hand

Of that Judas-friend

Leading me to memories.

Pleiku 1969
Tom McLean

Tom grew up in a military family that reaches back to the Civil War. His father served as a military advisor in Vietnam in the 1950's. Tom was drafted into the Army and served as an MP. He spent his entire tour in the Qui Nhon area with the 127th MP Company and the 177th MP Detachment. He had the pleasure of participating during the 1968 TET Offensive and spent his free time at the Holy Family Hospital, where he and other GI's were welcomed by the Catholic Nuns of the Medical Mission Sister Order. Tom has participated with the MDWP since its very first reading in Washington, DC on Veterans Day, 1993. Tom can be contacted at mcleansings@yahoo.com
Tom McLean

Aging Veteran  (Click to Listen)

(A song about the demons of war still chasing our veterans today)

I am an aging veteran,

fought my war a long time ago

My body's in pain and my mind's about the same,

sinkin' fast sinkin' low

I get visits in the night from dreams of the firefights,

though I try to chase them away

And when daylight sneaks through the blinds I leave the dreams behind,

and struggle through the day, It's a struggle every day

(Chorus)

I still love to think of times spent with my unit

Getting ready for patrol or going to town

The chatter always rough yea the insults flew

But when together, none could ever back us down

I remember the days as a raw recruit,

they kept their promise to make a man of me

Shaped up by the DI s into a good GI,

then on to the infantry

Sent to a place called Vietnam, where things got out of hand,

though it appeared that I escaped from lasting harm

On jungle trails I spent my time where they sprayed on the vines,

didn't know enough to be alarmed.

I returned to a country's inner struggle with the times,

demonstrations, some directed my way

Left the army went to work as a rural mail clerk,

pretty good job, pretty good pay

Then over time began the itches and the constant nervous twitches,

had trouble keeping things in sync

Couldn't deal with those at work, started acting like a jerk,

Found myself turning more and more to drink

Finally a doctor diagnosed my ills,

tied them to the places I had been

Meds were prescribed, or else I would have died,

I started acting halfway normal again

Then had fights with the VA who didn't see things quite my way,

but finally they got it straight

Now I'm in a home and the cancer's coming on,

I ain't far from the pearly gates, I ain't far from the pearly gates

November 2008
Tom McLean

Spirits of the Wall  (Click to Listen)

(With wailing harmonica and guitar, Tom tells of the veterans' emotional connection to the Wall)

We cut the blocks of granite

Etched the names upon them

Locked the stones together

Joining all of those who'd fallen

Those who died too soon to know

Of all the bitter feelings

It's there for all who care to come

To usher in the healing

We built the Wall, we built the Wall

It was built to restore honor

To a wounded generation

Built to ease the conscience

Of an unforgiving nation

A nation who had sent its youth

To war without condition

The stood and turned their backs on them

As they carried out the mission

It's on the Wall, it's on the Wall

Their honor is on the wall

There are more than 50 thousand

Standing guard and keeping holy

The rock and ground that's set aside

For their side of the story

Though they died most painfully

Their young breath left them early

Their spirits breathe of what they saw

In their last tour of duty

It's in the Wall, it's in the Wall

Their story is in the Wall

Their spirits mingle freely

Throughout each of the panels

Transmitting vibes to all around

Through sacred broadcast channels

They bring the monument alive

Keep those near surrounded

With reverence and tranquility

And remembrance unbounded

They are the Wall, They are the Wall

Their Spirits are the Wall

1993
Tom McLean

Living Only in Others Dreams  (Click to Listen)

(A song about a boy who died young serving his country and now only lives in the dreams of others)

Eddie took his seat every Saturday

In the middle of the front row at the matinee

And after watching the picture show

He'd be out playin' war you know

Playin' shoot-em up games you know

Always good at slayin' his friends

Could also die with the best of them

But his death never lasted very long

And his interest faded when the dinner bell rung

Always listnin' for his mother's dinner call

Maintained his tough guy image well

Became a high school jock, girls thought he was swell

Drove a dark red Chevy, with a 327

Before the letter came, he was in teenage heaven

Havin' a ball, seemed to have it all

They were lookin' for guys just like him

And every month there were thousands of them

Young and strong, waitin' in line

For the challenges of their times

Eager for, ready for, whatever came their way

Eddie stepped up and took his place

With that John Wayne pride showin' on his face

But it didn't take long for him to figure out

What bein' in a real war was all about

Reality set in pretty damn quick

He hadn't been in country very long

Til he was in a firefight that came out wrong

Got sent home in a silver box

And his mother got medals that couldn't ease her loss

No way to ease a mother's pain

He now lives only in others' minds

He's on his mother's all of the time

Remembered at school as his records fall

And by a friend from Nam when nightmares call

A short life that ended up in others' dreams

Now Eddie lives only in others' dreams

1995
Tom McLean

We Were There  (Click to Listen)

(Tom's signature song reflects on what our veterans did in Southeast Asia and how they undertook their tasks with pride and the importance of remembering those who did not return)

We were there, we were in South Vietnam for a while, oh yea

We were there, and the evening news didn't always show our style, oh no

We were there, throughout the countryside and every ville, oh yea

We were there, and we have not yet forgotten, and we never will, oh no

(Chorus)

We didn't go, because we liked the job there was to do, oh no

And we didn't go, because it was the only path to choose, oh no

And we didn't go, because we were afraid to show a flaw, oh no

And we didn't go, to make a reservation on the Wall, oh no

(Chorus)

We went because, we'd never turned our backs when we were called, oh yea

And we went because, we could not let someone else take our fall, h no

And we went because, of young idealistic burning flames, oh yea

And we went because, there are too many reasons we could name, oh yea

(Chorus)

We felt the tropic heat that drew our sweat

And the monsoon rains upon our heads

We heard the call and took our place in line

To meet the challenges of our times

1993
Tom McLean

I Remember  (Click to Listen)

(A song about how a certain sight, sound or event can grab one's minds and transport

us back unwillingly to another time and place; a place where we may not want to be).

Well it's been, many years

But I still, remember it so plain

There are times, when something hits me

Takes me, and it's like I'm there again

Some I know about, am familiar with

Can predict, and be ready to react

Some hit me blindly, often untimely

Knock me, flat upon my back

Some are pleasing, and I don't resist

Just close my eyes, smiling as I drift

Others are full of pain, I try to shake 'em off

Fight it all I can, I want it ended quick

Will this always be, I know the answer's yes

It's what I do expect, it's the price to pay

Although I walk and feel, laugh and love and cry

The flashbacks will not cease, until the day I die

1993
Cathie (Henderson) Solomonson

Cathie arrived in country April Fool's Day, 1968. She served as an Army Nurse at the 24th Evac Hospital, Long Binh, on the neuro surgical post-op recovery ward. She cared for wounded U. S. military, soldiers from multinational forces, and civilian war casualties. She participated in Med-Cap programs with her brother, a Navy Medic stationed nearby with a "Sea-Bee" Company.
Cathie (Henderson) Solomonson

Slow Dancing at the 24th Evac

I can show you where his wire sutures

Pressed into my cheek

But I probably won't....

He was one of the few

That could actually be moved

Out of bed. His name was John.

And he was from some small town on Long Island.

He looked to me to be Italian...

Gorgeous black curly hair

(Where it wasn't shaved from surgery)

Beautiful dark olive skin

(Where it wasn't dappled with scabs

Or abrasions)...

I would talk him through the moves to prepare him...

"John, I'm going to move you to the edge of the bed."

Then I'd slowly support his upper body as he shimmied

To the edge and then dangled his legs

Over the side.

I would take care not to touch

Any of the gauze covered areas

That hid the wires holding together the edges

Of dozens of painful frag wounds.

"OK, we'll stand for a moment and then swivel

Into the chair that's right alongside the bed here."

Then I'd lean into him and place my arms around

His chest and press my face against his and pull

Him forward until he slid-down off the mattress

Onto a wobbly stand...

And for just a brief moment we were locked

In that same wonderful embrace I remembered

From the slow dances at the high school sock hops.

And I had the same longing for the song not to end.

He was blind so he couldn't tell much about me

Couldn't tell I had skin like silk

From my Scottish grandmother,

Couldn't tell I had Barbie doll legs and

An ultra-brite smile.

Couldn't tell, and it didn't much matter,

That I was the stuff of prom courts and wet dreams.

What he could tell was that there was no way in hell

I was letting go of him

No matter how deep the wires pierced my cheek...

No matter how much green slime came lunging

At me from his trach. I would not let go

Until he was safely and lovingly escorted

To his seat when the dance was over...

And 20 years later when the armed forces recruiter

Called and asked to talk to my first-born son

I made no attempt at politeness...

I was a nurse in Vietnam, I said.

I have seen what the Army does

To the men and women placed in its care.

Do not call here again. And, as I placed the phone

Carefully back in its cradle, I realized

It had been pressing against that same spot on my cheek.
Cathie (Henderson) Solomonson

But You Did, Dear Nance

The night shift officially ended at 7am. If we were lucky,

we got one of Sgt. Peveehouse's omelets by 9...

and then some shut eye

We never needed a wake up call

Some inner urging brought us out each afternoon

We sat on the rickety picnic table nestled between

our sand bagged homes letting the warm monsoon rains

wash away the night's memories

You talked of the boy with Black Water fever

I spoke of the one who kept going bad

Sometimes we choked on our words

Sometimes we just sat silently with our eyes closed

Letting the downpour caress us,

faces gradually turning upward

toward the heavens I was sure,

no longer cared about anything

that mattered to me.

But you did dear Nance. You did.
Cathie (Henderson) Solomonson

For You, Bill

The reason I stayed away for all those years disappeared when I found you,

Bill Haneke, standing in front of the sign-up sheet to help lobby

for the Vietnam Women's Memorial.

There you were, resting only slightly on the Canadian crutches,

still an imposing hulk of a frame. I heard the vibrant voice first,

then I saw the easy smile. Then I saw the cranial defect,

the missing digits, the artificial eye.

We played 50 questions—the Vietnam service match game.

When were you there? '68... a match. Where were you stationed...?

24th Evac Hosp.. a match. Where were you a patient...? 24th Evac...

nother match! What ward...? NeuroSurgery. What injury...? Multiple wounds.

Head... the defining blow... another match.

Then you said the magic word... "Sister... My sister came to visit me," you said.

And then I saw her sitting by your bed. Holding your hand, the way I wished I

could sit with all of them, but there were dressings to change, IVs to start,

trachs to suction, shots and baths to give, blood to hang, Stryker frames to turn,

burns to clean, fevers to lessen, tube feedings to coax, bags to empty,

notes to chart, eyes to close.

There was only ever one sister, an Army recreational services-type stationed in Japan.

She hopped a flight as soon as she heard you were hurt. We worried how she would

handle sharing our austere living quarters, with the constant visits from medivac choppers

and occasional visits by large creeping rats, and peeping Toms.

My sister, you said... and then, of course I could see you there too, in the bed closest

to the nursing station, barely an inch of you showing through all those soaked dressings...

wanting to make it so bad... holding on so tight to your sister's hand.

You told me... still in the vibrant voice... still with the easy smile... you had 17 operations

since you returned... you had fathered four children you were so proud of... your wife for years

had found specks of grit and water buffalo hair in the bed linen when it had finally

worked its way out of your skin.

You said you had searched for twenty years for anyone of us that had taken care of you...

and I had the luck and the honor of being the first one... you asked if you could hug me...

and what a great crushing embrace it was... me sobbing softly the whole while...

wishing I could line up all of them to feel it too... Kathy, Ginny, Sandy, Sue,

Mary Lou, Patty, Nancy, Kay, Maria, and all the corpsmen and docs, too.

How could you know how terrified I had been that the first patient to find me

would tell me how much he hated me for not letting him die when he begged me to...

When he told me the first time I resuscitated him that he only wanted to live long enough

to hear whether his wife had a baby girl or a baby boy. It was close to Christmas Eve Day,

the Red Cross Hospital Service worker... Sally Sunshine we called her... gave him the news...

then he became so wild... shaking his swollen neck and head back and forth because that was

all he could move... each time I covered his trach he would say... Don't let me live.

I don't want to go back home like this...

How could I explain... It wasn't just about the oath... It was about the patient

I had taken care of at Fort Sam while I was waiting for orders to Nam.

He was a Korean War Vet... had been badly wounded many years before,

a head injury. Took him eight years to learn to read again...

got around San Antonio on an adapted bike and some drunken asshole

drove up on the sidewalk and hit him.

He was on my ward with one arm and one leg in traction... and he played

the harmonica with his free hand... tunes that made my heart dance...

and my legs quiver. He was amazing. I thought at the time... I bet

the Army nurse in the field hospital taking care of him in Korea would

have never known that this beautiful spirit of a man in front of me now

was the same one lying barely conscious in front of her then...

How could I explain all that to the desperate paraplegic in front of me...

it was impossible to know what lay ahead.

But still I panicked at the thought that he would find me... and possibly

indict me for all my piety in consigning him to a life he considered

to be a living hell... Accuse me of turning a deaf ear to his most fervent plea.

And he may still... But now I know I can face him... because I am more secure

with my memory of Bill's thunderous enthusiasm and his enduring sense of humor.

Once I ran into him near the Wall. He was using his wheelchair that day and joked...

"Cath, if you stick with me... I can take you places no man has ever taken you before."

When I fell for the bait with "Whatever do you mean?" he said..."I can get us seating

in the handicapped area up close to the Wall!"

Then we passed by the panel where his name would have been if he had not survived

to become the joyous man he is. I can face any Vet now.
Richard Epstein & Rinnah Joy Henderson

Richard enlisted in the U.S. Army and went to the Signal School at Ft. Monmouth, NJ. He was trained as a microwave radio repairman and was assigned to a communication site located in the northeast corner of Thailand (Phu Mu) with the 207th Signal Company, 1st Signal Brigade. After his return to the states, he served as an instructor at Ft. Monmouth. After three years in the Army, his first civilian job took him to back to SE Asia as a technical writer and then field engineer for Page Communication Engineers. He worked throughout Viet Nam and Thailand for an additional three years.

Richard's niece, Rinnah Joy Henderson, will be singing the following two songs at the Writers' Tent, Memorial Day 2012. Rinnah's CD "Darling Songbird" can be purchased at _ITunes_ and _Amazon.com._

 Eyes of the Forsaken (Click to Listen)

 Time To Change (Click to Listen)
Richard Epstein

Names on a Wall

In the heat of day

and the dark of night,

I've stared at the list

of hallowed names,

each cut like wounds

into a cold, black wall.

I think of those who

ceased to be and those

who returned to a land

they can't understand.

My friend Red got tired

of fighting the VA and

chose to live in a cardboard

box near the 14th St. bridge.

Thai Stick embraced life

but decided he had enough.

Tripwire used to walk

point in I Corps and was

done in by Agent Orange.

How do I help? How do I

honor these men and the list

of names? A moment of silence?

A well-spoken prayer? A wreath

laid once or twice a year? I've

been told I must first open

my heart and unclench my fist.

I think of the job they did, the sacrifice

they made, the life they could have

led. I honor those who fought and served

by accepting their best as part of me;

by being more than I alone could ever

be. Now I welcome those

who still walk with me.
Richard Epstein

That Polished Stone

(At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial)

Like dipping your toe

into a mountain stream,

once is enough to know

the water is cold.

But then you reach

down with cupped hands

to feel the wetness,

the chill of cold.

That's what I do

at that polished stone.

I step into a mist

seen only by me

to feel the dark, the cold,

the mingling of souls.

I take a deep breath and

hold it in tight.

Their eyes upon me.

Though I look straight ahead,

I see the names. At first glance,

each name seems the same.

Then with focus I read:

Thomas Williams,

Henry Jones,

Frank Elkins—

perhaps a boy down the street,

the man next door.

I didn't really know them.

I knew them too well.

With clenched fist I yell,

"Damn you, polished stone!"

"You stand aloof and cold—

not like a human heart,

not like a yearning soul."

"Two Friends" R. Epstein
Richard Epstein

Last Night I Saw

a small boy herding water buffalo

home for the night;

white ao dai*

waving in the breeze;

pristine white beaches,

not a sole in sight;

a prop-driven dive-bomber

flying beneath a double rainbow;

I saw fires in Cholon*—rubble.

My friend's home—gone.

*ao dai: pronounced ou yei. A close fitting tunic split along the sides to the waste worn over loose fitting (black or white silk) trousers.

*Cholon: Sister city of Saigon
Doug Todd

Doug Todd was born in 1943 on a farm in Randolph County, Arkansas. Doug enlisted in the Marines in 1963 and was selected for sea school. He joined a Nuclear Security Detachment aboard the USS Constellation (CVA-64) and after two years, he transferred to "WestPac Ground Forces" in Okinawa and arrived in Viet Nam in early 1966. He served as Fire-Team Leader and then Squad Leader with an infantry unit until he was medevac'd back to a hospital in CA. Doug is the author of a book of poetry inspired by his experiences and those of others in Vietnam. Todd's book, Aftermath: A Song for Tyrone, is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble.com and other bookstores.
Doug Todd

American Hero

(Dedicated To Veterans of WWII)

He never wanted to be a hero,

when he answered his country's call.

He hadn't really thought about it much ...

He was just doing his duty ... that's all.

He knew he wasn't made of "Hero Stuff" ...

He was just a regular kid;

And, he wouldn't have thought 'til the day it happened

That he could do those things he did.

But ...he was raised to believe that, to be a man,

you just did what you had to do ...

and, if the job was tough, well ...you just buckled

Down ... stayed with it and saw it through!

So, he picked up a rifle and went off to places

with names that he couldn't say;

And he learned to sleep in the mud at night ...

after fighting in the rain, all day.

He baked in the sun and he froze in the snow ...

and the loneliness broke his heart;

And, he would much rather have just gone home ...

but, he stayed and he did his part.

He shivered, with his friends, on that awful day

as the sun came up, blood red ...

And wondered, as they waited for the battle to start,

which of them soon would be dead?

He was just as scared as you would have been

if you were standing right where he stood ...

But, he fought back the fear and followed orders ...

He did what he had to ...

or did what he could.

He saw things and did things he can't talk about

without re-living the pain.

Sometimes he thought that he just couldn't take it ...

he was afraid he would go insane.

He knew you were supposed to be brave in war,

But, most of the time, he was scared.

He watched friends die ... and he wondered why

They were taken, and he was spared.

It seemed the war would go on forever,

but, somehow, he made it through,

Because, he just kept taking one day at a time

and doing what he had to do.

He still didn't feel like a hero

When he finally came home to stay;

He just got a job and went to work ...

His memories and his medals he locked away.

If you ask about it, he may reply,

"Oh ... all that happened a long time ago ..."

But ... when the night is too still and he can't sleep ...

It doesn't feel that long ... I know!

He still says he was "Just a citizen ..."

Just doing his duty ... that's all.

He may be old and bent ... but, when The Colors come by ...

You'll see him standing straight and tall!

Then ... if there's a look in his eye

Like he's watching things that, maybe you can't see ...

He's remembering those things he won't talk about ...

And, he knows why that flag flies free!

We should be proud of the history of our great land,

and thank God for the Red, White and Blue ...

But ... the hero of the story is that common man ...

Who just did what he had to do!
Doug Todd

The Ballad of the New Frontier

Once upon a lifetime ago,

in a place no one wanted to go;

on a hillside in Hell ... we were not doing well ...

it's a common old story, I know.

Halfway to the top ... all the way to a stop,

we couldn't fall back or move on ahead;

So many were hurtin' and I was quite certain

if we didn't break out, we'd be dead.

Well, I needed someone for a dangerous run ...

it was a risk that we all understood;

when a friend caught my eye and he wanted to try ...

he could make it ... if anyone could!

He didn't have to be prodded ...

I just looked up and nodded ...

and he charged into Hell on his own!

But ... the mortars fell 'round him 'til one of them found him ...

sometimes I remember Tyrone.

Sometimes, I remember Tyrone;

I wish you could remember him too!

Rock solid and steady he stood always ready

to do the job he had to do.

Sometimes when I freak out and "flash-back" I sneak out

and just take a walk on my own,

and, when I find a quiet place that feels like the right place ...

I stop and remember Tyrone.

Do you remember Tyrone?

You should remember Tyrone!

You remember watts burning and a page we were turning

'til Doctor King fell by the way ...

but, what of a young man who made a brave last stand

on a hill half-a-lifetime away?

You remember Black Power and the day and the hour

that Camelot fell like a stone ...

you remember some hippies and potheads and yippies ...

but, do you remember Tyrone?

There was a vision abroad in the land

of a shining New Age right at hand;

Freedom's banner unfurled in a grateful third world

by America's bountiful hand!

"Ask not what your country can do ......

but, step forward now and stand tall

and take up the fight for Freedom and Right!"

And, some of us answered that call.

Politicians schemed it,

but, Tyrone fought for and dreamed it

and, it's a shame that his name is unknown!

Maybe we shouldn't give up 'til we've tried to live up

to some promises we made Tyrone!

Do you remember Tyrone?

We all should remember Tyrone!

Tyrone fought a good fight; he died in a hard fight

but, he fought there of his own free will;

for a land that he loved and a people he trusted ...

(I wonder if he'd trust us still?).

Was the promise we made him

just the grave where we laid him

and some words that we carved on a stone?

Or was there something greater that should have come later?

What do you think that we owe Tyrone?

Do you remember Tyrone?

God knows I remember Tyrone!!

You remember Watts burning

and a page we were turning

'til Doctor King fell by the way ...

But, what of a young man

who made a brave last stand

on a hill half-a-lifetime away?

You remember Black Power

and the day and the hour

that Camelot fell like a stone ...

you remember some hippies,

draft-dodgers and yippies ...

but, do you remember Tyrone?
Doug Todd

A Shot in the Dark

His body trembles against me,

Iron fingers clutch my shirt ...

(Waking suddenly in a sweat,

I feel them twisting there)

The back of his head missing ...

A hole in his chest ...

Gray lips whisper,

"Tell Mama ... tell Mama ...!"

Tell Mama what?

... The gray lips never said.
Doug Todd

Aftermath: The Answer

(For Marjorie who waited for it.)

If a man had life to live over again ...

So often it's put that way;

If a man had life to live over again ...

But, couldn't change a single day;

Would a man be willing to walk again,

where he walked so long before?

Would he feel the pain, again and again,

and live it all over, once more?

...If I had life to live over again

and they told me straight and true

that I couldn't change it and they made it plain ...

if they asked what I wanted to do ...

Would I go again to that soggy plain

where death reigned night and day?

If I had to just die ... or go back and try;

If they asked me, what would I say?

Would it be worthwhile to fight that mile

to take the wrong hill again?

To see the suffering, the fire and the fear,

and the smoke and the death and the pain?

After the places I've been;

After the things I've done;

After pale death in the dawn-light;

After the knife and the gun;

Now that I've considered the question ...

Now that I've worried it through ...

Now that the fight is over,

... I'd say yes, and I'd do it too!

Because, after it all was over ...

After all ... there was you.
Richard Morris

Richard (Dick) Morris is the author of two books and a CD of songs written while he was stationed in Vietnam. He was a 2nd Lt. rifle platoon leader in the 2nd Battalion, Fifth Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division during the second half of 1967. In 1968, he was a 1st Lt. Battalion Communications Officer (battalion songwriter and historian) for the 2/5. Anyone in the Cav. would be familiar with the subject matter in his songs. Dick's Skytroopers CD is available at: www.cdbaby.com/ cd/RichardMorris. Additional lyrics can be seen at http://www.vietwarsongs.com.
Richard Morris

Charlie  (Click to Listen)

[Charlie, a nickname for Viet Cong (VC) soldiers, taken from the phonetic alphabet—Victor Charlie—and also loosely applied to North Vietnamese Army soldiers (NVA).]

The mountains are porous ant hills where lurks the enemy

Deep inside he makes his nest or 'neath the canopy.

The mountains float on banks of fog that throw a perfect screen.

He ventures out to prowl at night when he can move unseen.

Charlie, Charlie.

But still we kill him ten to one and keep him on the run.

We sniff and search and hunt him down beneath the blazing sun.

And then at night we set our lairs and wait until he comes.

He's never beat the Cavalry and it never will be done.

Charlie, Charlie, give up.
Richard Morris

Digging a Hole  (Click to Listen)

(An award-winning song about foxholes and sleeping holes dug to protect all grunts).

Verse 1

Toss that spade down my way.

Got to slice me up some clay.

Over here, it ain't for play.

Diggin' a hole.

Swing that pick. Let it fly.

Bite that boulder, make it cry.

No one's gotta tell me why

I'm diggin' a hole.

Hell, no, Sergeant!

I ain't diggin' for China, no.

I ain't diggin' in my grave hole, either.

I'm just diggin' my way back home.

Stretch that back. Drive it down.

Eat that dust without a frown.

Raise an arm and wipe your brow.

Diggin' a hole.

Verse 2

Now that shovel weighs a ton.

Twenty lashes from the sun.

When in hell will I be done?

Diggin' a hole.

Achin' muscles beg an' plead.

Burnin' blisters break and bleed.

Now my pick has lost its greed

for diggin' a hole.

Don't go quittin!

Just take a sip of this water cool.

Think about your old lady, will you?

Get back to diggin', you lazy fool.

When those rockets come my way

I'll lay here alone and pray

And be glad I spent the day

Diggin' a hole.

And be glad I spent the day

Diggin' a hole.
Richard Morris

Bong Son Bridge  (Click to Listen)

(A catchy tune about the easy duty when guarding the Bong Son Bridge).

Let me tell you 'bout a bridge in Vietnam:

Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

Just one lane wide and it ain't too long,

The Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

It's a vital link in Highway One:

The Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

And the Fifth Cav guards her like a jealous husband,

Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

There's a ninety trucker convoy a-comin' on

The Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

They started a-movin' at the break of dawn to

Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

They've been churnin' up the dust down from old Qui Nhon.

Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

And a -pullin' all the cargo that the Army lives on.

Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

Don't you try to blow it Cousin Charlie

'Cause you'll die if you try.

We've got the deadly Dusters leveled on you,

So goodbye.

Listen to the little girls a-sellin' beer at

Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

"Hey you, GI, come and set right here" at

Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

"It's beaucoup cold for fifty P"

at Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

It's number one and it cost Ti Ti"

at Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

at Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

at Bong Son (Bong Son), Bong Son Bridge.

at Bong Son!
Richard Morris

It's A Long Row To Hoe (Marching Song)  (Click to Listen)

(A marching song with the sound of boots for determination and voices  
disappointment at the lack of support from folks back home).

It's a long row to hoe. It's a long march to clover.

It's a bloody bad road, but our spirit is high

Got a long way to go, but we'll stay till it's over,

And nobody will say we didn't try.

We will try. We will try.

And nobody will say we didn't try.

Got a long way to go, but we'll stay till it's over,

And nobody will say we didn't try.

It's a long row to hoe for the supper tomorrow.

Gotta plow, plant, and hoe, and the weeds we must kill.

And for freedom to grow, it must be watered with sorrow.

It's a long way to winning but we will.

But we will. But we will.

It's a long way to winning, but we will.

And for freedom to grow, it must be watered with sorrow.

It's a long way to winning but we will.

It's a long row to hoe when nobody's behind you.

It's a backbreaking load when they curse you at home.

But how can you say "quit" with the past to remind you.

Oh, we'll win it if we have to all alone.

All alone. All alone.

Oh, we'll win it if we have to all alone.

But how can you say "quit" with the past to remind you.

Oh, we'll win it if we have to all alone.

It's a long row to hoe and our grief we must swallow,

but we're not all alone, for the sun is still bright.

And the seed that we sow is for the children that follow.

With our honor to guide us, we will fight.

We will fight. We will fight.

With our honor to guide us, we will fight.

And the seed that we sow is for the children that follow.

With our honor to guide us, we will fight.
Richard Morris

When's the Sun Gonna Shine at Camp Evans?  (Click to Listen)

[During monsoon season, Camp Evans—the 1st Cav northern HQ base between Quang Tri and Hue—was socked-in and vulnerable to enemy mortar and rocket attack. Song takes place before Tet.]

When's the Sun Gonna Shine on Camp Evans?

When's the end of the mist comin' on?

When's the cloud gonna lift to the heavens?

It won't be long. It won't be long.

When will death say goodbye to Camp Evans?

When will mortars and rockets be gone?

When the sun shines again on Camp Evans.

It won't be long. It won't be long.

This cold monsoon's a-crampin' our style.

But don't despair quite yet.

This'll be Cav country in a short while.

We'll win the north with sweat.

When will death say goodbye to Camp Evans?

When the birds see their way to the Cong.

When the sun shines again on Camp Evans.

It won't be long. It won't be long.

It won't be long.
Richard Morris

Charlie's Gone From Khe Sanh  (Click to Listen)

(A slow wistful tune. With 1,000 dead, 19,000 called it quits and fled during Operation Pegasus, 31 March 68)

[(Operation Pegasus, 31 March 68) The 1st Cavalry Division launched Operation Pegasus to relieve the 3500 Marines and 2100 ARVN troops surrounded and under siege by 20,000 NVA troops at Khe Sanh near the DMZ. A Co. 2/5 landed on a hill denuded by Agent Orange with a 30-foot-wide bomb crater on top. Eerily, we found no enemy troops – only some discarded weapons – and presumed that the attack on the Marines had ended. Where was Charlie? Other companies saw days of tough combat. Overall, the division killed more than 1000 enemy; 19,000 fled.]

Charlie's Gone, Charlie's Gone, from Khe Sahn, from Khe Sahn.

When we got there, when we got there,

the Leathernecks were lyin' in the sun

and a-havin' fun, a-havin' fun,

and a-sippin' a long, cool one.

'Cause Charlie's gone.

Charlie's Gone, Charlie's Gone, from Khe Sahn, from Khe Sahn.

We'd like to think, we'd like to think, he heard the Cav was comin' and he run.

But there's more than that, there's more than that,

'Cause the jets are gettin' deadly with their bombs.

He didn't even say goodbye.

He didn't even pack his bags.

He didn't even say where he was goin' knowin'

We'd want to pay a visit to him soon.

Charlie's Gone, Charlie's Gone, from Khe Sahn, from Khe Sahn.

We're moppin up, we're moppin' up

his weapons by the hundred these days.

But no KIAs, no KIAs and no pris'ners are we gettin' from the caves

Cause Charlie's gone.

Adieu.
Gretchen Sullivan

Gretchen is the daughter of a Vietnam veteran who served from '67 to'68 with the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing, Headquarters and Maintenance Squadron-13, MAG-13, in Chu Lai, Vietnam. In her own words: "As the child of a Vietnam vet, I felt like Vietnam was in my bones from the time that I was a little kid. In my family, some of my dad's stories were whispered or not spoken of at all, and some of them were stories that were with us, overtly, all the time.

All my life, I've grilled him for all the details of his Vietnam stories. No matter how hard the telling is, he always tells me. I don't want those stories to be lost. Even when the stories are brutal, as they often are, I feel like it's my job to tell the truth - whatever ambivalence or pain that may reveal. I think of my work as poetry of witness - writing that tries to tell the truth of horrific events, in the hope that we will never forget those events, and in the hope that no one after us will have to suffer in the same way.

I'm indebted to my father, to all of his Vietnam buddies, and to all of the amazing vets I've met along the way, for entrusting me with their stories. I won't ever know what they've known first-hand, but I'm honored to be a part of their family. I hope that the work I do with language and poetry always serves vets, as they served us, and always offers both a recognition of what they live through on a daily basis, and a vision for thanks, healing, and peace."

"Saigon at Night" R. Epstein

Gretchen Sullivan

Brotherhood

Tet, Chu Lai, January 1968.

Eddie "Tomatoes" D'Amato

drags your stoned ass

from the hootch down into the open

bunker when the VC drop a rocket

on your bomb dump. You'd missed

the rocket's suck through air, sat mesmerized

in the flash, concussions like music.

This ain't no fucking fireworks, Tommy.

He hauls you by the band of your skivvies,

grateful, later, under the lip

of dirt, that you wasted time

to grab the flask. The GAF bunker,

you'd called it, for give a fuck.

After Tet, you and Tomatoes cover it

with runway matting and sandbags.

Three months later, on night supply

with Tomatoes, stoned in the early morning,

the rockets hit again. You run

across the sand under fire, crab-wise,

back to supply from the bunker

to find Eddie's cigarettes and a canteen

of coffee. A brother knows

what a brother needs

to keep him from shitting his pants.

Later, you remember these small things:

whiskey, cigarettes, coffee, heat of bodies

in a bunker. Not so small.

Thomas, geminus, twin.

D'Amato, amare, to love.
Gretchen Sullivan

The Eye

I was not the man on the ground

belly-down to the jungle bugs

and the dirt soaked with rain and

blood. I was not the man who humped

the dead and near-dead through night paddies.

I was not the man at My Lai;

I did not break for lunch and eat

slowly so bound fathers could watch

their wounded daughters die in ditches

at my feet. No, I was only the air

man, the drop boy, Vietnam a sponge

of green under the chopper. I just

threw their food, their guns,

my own gun rusted to my hip.

But I saw the hootches burning.

I watched them kill the children and animals

when all the men and women were dead.
Gretchen Sullivan

Oral History

My mother, Catherine Josephine,

small phrase, thin remnant,

the haunt that hung at the windows

and smoked. We will not speak

about sickness in this house --

my father's command, as she

beat her devils down the drainpipes

with ammonia and burned

her ghosts back into the wallpaper

with a hot iron. We will not speak

about sickness in this house, as I sang

the Mass for an infant brother, born dead

and soft, never named.

And later, for my own father, Richard Barry,

whom I carried to the toilet

four times an hour for two years.

Dead from hacking on his own stomach,

the pulp of cancer dried on his lips,

the sickness that sealed them.
Gretchen Sullivan

Winter 1988

for my father and brother

What I remember most about that winter

in our father's cabin is kerosene

and the hunger of the four brown stoves.

And the clatter of wind on the roof's

metal skin, and each rusted pipe

that gave up from November to March.

The dust-colored birds that pecked

at scraps of the cake he let us eat

for lunch. His bone-scrawny Shepherd

that watched us chew turkey from aluminum

tins. Do you remember the lake there,

brother, Dog Pond' Vexing name,

silted water, and we skated it that winter

on soaped moon boots, under the scum-gray

light of the sun. There were mice

under the pocked wooden sink and a kingdom

of feral cats in the abandoned lean-to.

Abandoned. It has the right sound and feel

from here, as I lift the memory and hold it up,

locked like a daguerreotype, and see

three refugees and their animal comrades,

wintering, frozen in a scene from a familiar

documentary. What I remember most is gratitude,

later, for meat with bones, hot water, insulation,

the demise of the KeroSun stove, and him,

leader of a fractured tribe, a man who shouldered

weight as light, said pioneers, not exiles.
Year of the Monkey 
Thomas Brinston

Thomas served in II Corps, Qui Nhon '67 - '68. He was one of the many readers that stopped by our tent and read with us on one of his visits to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. Tom also served as a peacemaker with the Nonviolent Peace Force in Mutur, Sri Lanka from 2003 to 2005. Tom lived in Tuson, AZ and made the transition to upstate New York and remains active in Veteran activities.
Thomas Brinston

patriotic pondering

fact:

i was born

in a certain place

within a particular country

but that happenstance alone

is not enough - - no it doesn't suffice

to induce in me peacocked pride

stirring loyalty or blind patriotism

indeed

somewhat thankful

am i for it

now i serve it

in a war-torn land

distant and strange and unnecessary

where i just might die for it

or so the newspapers shall say

gallantly waxing trite rhetoric and hollow pomp

i'll just be dead - - small comfort for my next-of-kin

soon i may return to it

and maybe be happy in it

for awhile

but that won't make me stay

i very well may leave it

not quite ready yet

to fully accept

to be definitively sure

that some other place

other than it

far-off or near

isn't greater better

or more relevant

Somewhere in Vietnam

Sometime in 1967-68

"Untitled" R. Epstein

Thomas Brinston

eyes

it's mostly the eyes

that get to you

here in this

war-lulled place

those glazed

by pain

or death

overmuch

others tinted

with just a trace of tears

the eyes filled too much

with far away memories

eyes not hoping enough

that stare at nothing

especially at walls

but the eyes

that bug you the most

are the moon-filled eyes

of the children

full-bellied

with malnutrition

which barely

are touched by

slightly gleaming of

the tiniest spark

of an always

smile

Summer, 1967

Qui Nhon, Vietnam

"Hope" R. Epstein

Thomas Brinston

War Person

Deep grief rages

unresolved within me

Unquenchable tears squeezed dry

unreleasingly flow

No bottom

No relief

No end

Always there

just behind awareness

ready to spring forth

at the drop of a memory

the turn of a thought

about war

W... A... R...

It haunts me

It pursues me

It badgers me

casting a pallor of gloom

throughout my being

My dark obsession with war

My love-hate relationship with war

My intrusive preoccupation with war

It seems they have always been with me

Christ--I was a war-baby

conceived at the turning point

of "The Good War"

An early memory is listening

with Mom by the new kitchen sink

to a radio broadcast of Eisenhower

consumate Father-General

explaining Korea

So hurtfully shamed I was

that Dad stayed stateside and didn't fight

teaching navigation to the poor basturds

who got shot up over Dresden or Okinawa

when taunted by snot-nosed playmates in wooded forts

No trophies for me to brandish

I remember how precious

was the black plastic machine-gun

so shiny with the bright blood-red bullets

a ten-year-old's Christmas present to celebrate

As a barely aware boychild

voraciously I read

every war novel and voluminous war history

I could clutch my chubby hands on

On Saturday afternoons

again and again we'd watch the heroic endeavors

splashed on silvered screen in darkened matinees

of Wayne McQueen Cooper Murphy & Peck

or see reruns in flickering TV black and white

of Combat - Flash Gordon - Blackhawk

Very ironic my disappointment

and already seething resentment

fearfully whispering to buddies

in dimming light of Boy Scout campfire

that we wouldn't have a war

to valiantly perform acts of courage in

when the '56 Suez Canal crises

sputtered to a truce without hostilities

just as Vietnam loomed

miniscule still

to stain inexorably darker

blotting itself right in the middle

of our generation

We got our war after all

Compelled I was to go

to volunteer

to experience that little war

would-be and dirty

of my generation

despite my abhorrence and disgust

my soul-quaking doubt

Jesus

I was a Peacenik demonstrator

and an advanced ROTC student in college

both horrified and fascinated

by my role of officer-soldier

Manically I dreamed blood-dark dreams

of violently gallant glory suicidal

charging up some thickened jungle slope

into a hail-fire of slicing AK-47 rounds

To have Charlie do to me

what I was too chicken to do to myself

even when blitzed on shots

of bar whiskey and San Miguel

And it happened

despite my fervent death-wish to the contrary

I survived

* * *

Now almost two decades later

despite Sara's and my strong prohibition

against guns or war toys

son Thomas barely six

is fixated on

Rambo Ninja GI Joe

Transformers Commando Karate Kid

Through such means

do we teach our gender

the race-consciousness of war

Just this Saturday past for example

in K-Mart he wanted so passionately

the guerrilla-style M-16

"Please, Dad, Please. It's only a toy, Dad. Please"

his beaming face begged up at me

So much a part of me

wanted him to have it

and one for me too

Then I could take him to some

deep dark sun-patched wood

to charge through some mutually fantasized

virtual image of heroically routing

for freedom

for the redwhite&blue

for mother and the darlin? little sweetheart

back in the homeland

a dreaded dastardly enemy's ambush

in gallant uphill rush

To show him the ropes

the tricks

the little secrets

of successfully challenging fate

again and again by repeated rolls

of the combat dice

To play war games (again) with him

Sometimes I despair

how I can teach him to abhor

what so much a part of me still so loves

Star Wars The Road Warrior Enemies

my precious New York Giants even

sublimated wish fulfillments to go forth and kill

Sara wishes for me not to be a woman

to suffer through the monthly cycle of hormones

I wish for her not to be a man

to suffer through this obsession with killing

Neat balance

So ... what do I conclude

winging my way skyward toward Buffalo

through this brilliantly bright New York State early summer morning

over checkered fields of sundry muted green-browns

and haphazard windings of rivers and roads

with the tears just streaming again down

my sun-tanned-and-glassed countenance

while my fellow yuppie business-person passengers

pass the time behind designer attaché cases or Wall Street Journals

Maybe... just perhaps

through this process of working through

once more my meta-grief about war

I shall somehow become more a peacemaker

waging peace

No war

is ever worth

one

single

tear

Early Summer, 1983

Garden City, NY

"Paddy Fishing" Mark Raab

Thomas Brinston

wasteland

wide-mouthed, eyes slack

i stare in terrible awe

at the acres X acres X acres

stretching the wide horizons

on both sides of the road

just east of Davis Monthan Air Force Base

millions of dollars to the tenth or so power

of moth-balled flying war machines,

Sleek F-16s, F-14s, stubby A-10 Thunderbolts

even vintage F-4 Phantoms from the travesty

of my ignoble war so long, long ago

balanced on the left by scores and scores

of C-130s, C-5s, C-141s and here and there

a Stratotanker or three

a companion notes that they've cut way back

on the number of aircraft in storage

"Used to be over 8,000, now its down

somewhere near 5,000 or less planes"

all battened down tight, gathering dust

in the hot Southern Arizona desert

let's see, at a conservative estimate

of $25 million a pop neatly stacked row by row

that's billions and billions of dollars sitting idle

in this one Air Force Base alone

no wonder the poor go hungry

the homeless litter the dirty streets

and the sick and aged lie alone slowly dying

warehoused in overstuffed cadaver wards

while school children lay fallow in boredom

May 16, 2002

Tucson, AZ
Thomas Brinston

Pleiku Jacket

Once you've experienced the horrors of war, it seems you never can escape it. "There's Always Something There to Remind Me," as the early 60s song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David goes. Yesterday morning, for example, I was dumbstruck by an unexpected sharp reminder of what I experienced in the Central Highlands of Vietnam almost 42 years ago during the brutal Tet Offensive. There I was in Bread Alone, one of the tonier of tourist-filled establishments on the main street of my new hometown in Woodstock, NY, with a bagel and a latte. As I stirred raw sugar into the latte, I glanced back at an elegant 40-something woman placing her order.

BAM-POW – the air swooshed out of me as if I had been punched in the solar plexus. She was wearing a faded-green satin jacket emblazoned with the words, "Pleiku, Vietnam." One of the typical GI slogans of the day, "When I die I'll go to heaven because I've spent my time in hell!" encircled the colored embroidered image of South Vietnam.

I approached her, "Excuse me, but I ran supplies to Pleikiu in late 67, early 68. Are you the daughter of a Vet?"

"Oh, I'm sorry," she replied. "No, I went to high school in Manhattan in the early 80s, and there was a thrift store near the school that had lots of these jackets. A bunch of us bought them and wore them. We thought they were cool. I've kept mine after all these years and wear it from time to time."

Cool! ??? What could I say? Nothing really. So I wished her a good day and went out into the bright sunlight of a beautiful morning, deeply breathing away the dark images from that faraway place that never is too far away in memory.

August 9, 2009

Woodstock, NY
Mark Pankow & Patty Reese

Mark enlisted in the Army as an engineer. After a few years, he was commissioned in the Military Police Corps as a graduate of Officer Candidate School. He was later dual-branched as a Military Intelligence officer specialized in Counterintelligence. He retired as LTC from the Joint Staff after 25 years of service and now works as a Duty Director in the National Operations Center, Homeland Security. Mark's wife, Patty Reese, is a well-known local musician, who writes most of her own songs. Patty sang "Last Call for Love" and "Keep Me in Your Heart," at a recent visit to the MDWP tent on a cold Veteran's Day in Washington, DC.

 To hear Patty Reese's songs, click on the song titles listed below:

 Last Call for Love (Click to Listen)*

 Keep Me in Your Heart (Click to Listen)*

*Courtesy of Creative Dreams Music Network
Mark Pankow

Footsteps (Mark Pankow)

Over lush green fields we did tread,

Among the stones of honored dead,

As my father sought to impart,

To me a young patriot heart,

Ten thousand names, ten thousand stones,

Ten thousand souls who'd left their homes,

To take an oath, a solemn pledge,

Chose country over privilege,

I yearned to grow that I might be,

What my father had hoped for me,

Til my day came and I stood in ranks,

For his example gave my thanks,

Ever proud of our nation's past,

I trained to fight, to win, to last,

Lived a life of silent sacrifice,

Until I, too, paid freedom's price,

Lying in our eternal bed,

Above, we hear soft footsteps tread,

As a father seeks to impart,

To his son a patriot heart
Mark Pankow

For Those Who Also Serve

For God, country, they raise the hand,

To join the ranks, defend this land,

To take up arms in noble cause,

Yet for others, too, must we pause,

Of those who serve there's daily word,

But naught of those behind is heard,

Whose loved ones their hero's blood spend,

While they back home the hearth fires tend,

Who drive the team while Dad's away,

For others' sake their dreams delay,

Who read the stories beside the bed,

And daily strive to clear their head,

Who raise the kids with values strong,

Endure each absence far too long,

Who write letters that lift the soul,

Mail the cookies worth more than gold,

Who send pictures to mark the years,

And silently abate their fears,

Whose trees with yellow ribbons adorn,

Re-read love letters now well worn,

Whose candles in the window burn,

Await each night the sweet return

Who dress again the severed arm,

That once had kept them safe from harm

Who those abed their spirits mend,

With sympathetic ear attend

Who in worship bend knee and pray,

Dread chaplains' visit some weekday,

Lend friends shoulders on which to grieve,

Fear one day they'll the same receive,

For parents' pride o'er sharp new pain,

Their children lost for freedom's gain

For lonely widow's lost caress,

Whose man was lost in nobleness,

For child's fond thoughts as pictures fade,  
Whose parent their last measure paid,

Who scribe lost names upon the plaque,

When those long missed did not come back,

Who drape star-studded casket pall,

O'er friends who chose and gave their all

Who mournful Taps at graveside play,

Tend fields where honored comrades lay,

Who plant Old Glory on graveyard plots,

Sell Poppies and Forget-Me-Nots,

Who calmly bear harsh protest word,

From ingrates shielded by the sword,

Who forward rush for new first kiss,

As sharp commands the ranks dismiss,

Then, in full family embrace,

Old fears and loneliness erase.

Dear Lord, grant thy sheltering hand,

Protect by grace this favored land,

And those whose selfless acts of love,

The wealth of freedoms daily prove,

Thus, let us all respect reserve,

For those back home who also serve.

Mark Pankow

Martial Journey

The thrill of the first kiss,

The question and its affirmation,

The decision to stand for something,

The raised hand,

The shock

of hard life

of yelling

of sergeants with clipboards

of doing it again and again until you get it right

of dirt and mud and sweat and cold

The brief interlude at home,

The awkward words of friends and family not quite knowing what to say,

The vow to the one, who counts most,

The parting kiss that must last,

The promise to return.

The sharp report,

The plunge into the fight,

The instant, instinctive movements and actions of the well-trained,

The pain of injury,

The greater pain of comrades wounded and lost,

The scene played out again and again,

The eyes that have seen too much and slept too little,

The bad dreams of the present,

The letters bringing good dreams of tomorrow,

The short timer's calendar.

The long journey home,

The Soldier's new confidence,

The baggage of scars in and out,

The restless, sleepless flight back,

The Soldier's new doubts and fears of what lies ahead,

The strong hands hefting the heavy pack for the walk down the ramp,

The strong hands shaking in anticipation,

The eyes searching the crowd,

The dismissal and the break from ranks,

The rush forward,

The discarded pack,

The thrill of the first kiss.
Norah A. Burns

Norah came to a Veteran's Day reading on the Mall with her husband and two children. Her father, Donald Taylor, served in Vietnam from 1969 to 1971 in DaNang, with the 37th Signal Battalion and in the Ashau Valley with the 101st Airborn. These poems are written in honor of her father, her Grandfather (a WWII veteran), and a cousin, Jaworski Doucette, who served in Ramadi, Iraq.
Norah A. Burns

I Remember You

I remember you,

so strong and handsome.

Nothing else in the world

existed except us.

I remember your

Kool cigarettes and the way

you would rest your hand,

four fingers,

slightly under the waistband

of your dungarees with no fuss.

I remember your skullcap,

the way you would roll it up high

on your forehead,

your hair curling

a perfect form below it.

I remember your eyes,

small and beautiful

always with the

twinkle of me they were lit.

I remember the comfort

of your voice when you

smiled at me.

I remember the comfort

of your voice when you

smiled at me Baby girl &

she remembers you, Daddy boy,

when she laughed back,

you being her entire world.

Then I remember, I remember

The noise and the screaming.

I remember the blows and the pleading.

I remember your voice,

your comforting voice disappearing.

I remember your eyes,

your beautiful eyes

glare as if bleeding.

I remember the seizures, the tumors, and the surgeries.

I remember your skullcap,

rolled much too high upon your forehead

allowing my tiny hands to run across the ruler-like scar

that tattooed its entirety with dread.

I remember the bombs, the blood, the bane, and the banishment.

I remember the

Pain and anguish of abandonment.

I remember the hospitals, the meds, the missing,

and the ghosts.

I remember attempts at rehabilitation and assimilation

at its most.

I remember your strength,

your love and your words.

But most of all Daddy,

I remember to thank you

for giving me these nerves.
Norah A. Burns

Time In Service

Written in living memory and honor

of my cousin Jaworski Doucette

Serving in Ramadi, Iraq

With you I do this time in service

For although I am not in action with you

The risk and fear I feel are great.

For you I speak these words of support

Because I realize that nothing

More than encouragement

Can help you through this fate.

With you I do this time in service

Using my voice as a reminder to all,

That it is you who sacrifice your mind,

Body and soul for our cause.

For you I speak these words of support

Because I realize that many

Exist oblivious to our suffering

In their luxury of ambivalence without pause.

And it is with you I do this time in service

Saluting with you in pride when you return to our midst.

And it is for you I speak these words of support

In remembrance for those we shall miss.
Norah A. Burns

With Your Grace

Written in loving memory of my Grandfather

Roy J. Jack,

who proudly served his country

as a member of the Army Air Corps

I know you

Are here

With me.

I could never do this before.

I can feel it.

I know they

Wish it not

To be, but,

I can feel it.

You never wrote

Like me,

Not for lack

Of creativity.

I guess you couldn't

For lack of clemency

Your path

Was hard,

Though,

You never lost

Your whim.

I know you're getting

A good laugh

Right now

Seeing, ME, swim.
J. Holley Watts

Holley Watts worked as a Donut Dolly (American Red Cross SRAO program) with the 1st and 3rd Marine Amphibious Forces from '66 to '67 in DaNang, Chu Lai, An Khe, and Cu Chi, Vietnam. Holley is the author of Who Knew?...Reflections on Vietnam. She also participated in the development of In The Shadow of the Blade, and An Ocean Away, and co-wrote and narrated a documentary about Donut Dollies─all produced by Arrowhead Films. The latter film was called A Touch of Home: The Vietnam War's Red Cross Girls and won first prize at the Third Annual GI Film Festival.
J. Holley Watts

47W

I noticed him waiting in line

wearing black leather like so many others that day.

The large book lay open under the thick glass

and he approached it cautiously.

Turning them slowly he paused,

his finger first moving down each page

... then finally across.

With shaking hand he copied numbers

on a slightly crumpled envelope.

I knew this was his first visit to The Wall

He looked so lost... and in such pain.

I touched his arm and asked if I could help.

He just showed me the paper, held tightly now

and I pointed to the other side of The Wall's apex

... past the crowds filling the path in front of us

on this warm sunny Memorial Day.

I saw his eyes sweep the area—they were not the enemy-

but still he did not move.

As the crowd grew I took his calloused hand

and we walked together, his holding mine tightly

until we reached Panel 47W.

I didn't show him how to leap-frog by tens

down the black granite-carved diamonds along the edge.

It was better to count each row.  
35... 36... 37...

"There he is," he whispered hoarsely

and touched one of the names etched before him.

We stood in silence

and he drew a ragged breath.

Struggling to open the envelope

he handed the typewritten tribute to me

saying only he didn't think he could do it.

As I read I could feel people slow as they passed behind us.

It was unsigned and when I finished I handed it back to him.

We stood together in the sun, drenched in our pain.

I squeezed his hand and slowly moved away.

Oh, how I wish I'd hugged him...

for both of us.
J. Holley Watts

Mind Games

It was an unrelenting conspiracy of the senses

swinging between overload and vacuum.

Some nights they swore they could hear Charlie breathe.

On others, they were so deafened by the artillery's roar

they heard only a constant ringing in both ears.

This was a place they could choke on dust

or the pungent smell of their own uniform

while their feet and bunkers were mired in mud.

Jungle canopies and overgrown hills rising into the clouds

held temperature extremes that both melted and froze them on the same day.

The term "ground" was relative and always came in unexpected layers;

from elephant grass that didn't look taller than them from above, but was

and the jungle so-called "floor" (that wasn't) with its invisible ankle-height trip wires

to the newly-cleared paths above unseen tunnels that snaked for miles

housing enemy troops and even their hospitals.

In his diary he wrote that he just knew he was going to die one night

when the enemy crept by only a knife's blade away.

To keep his teeth from chattering and expose him

he made a pact with God... and bit hard on his helmet strap.

He was absolutely ecstatic when morning came to the LZ

and he was still OK.

They were all OK.

But it was the sound of a chopper that confused him.

A dust-off? Had somebody been hit after all?

That's when he looked up, wiped his eyes and pointed,

... Angels! he yelled to the guys. Angels in blue!

I guess two of us Donut Dollies in blue uniforms stepping off that chopper

did stand out against all that grey mud and dust.

It was, he later said,

... as if everything in the war changed from black and white... to color.

We were oblivious to his singular terror, just eager to help each connect with home...

Hey, How are ya? Where are ya from?

Philadelphia! came a shout from the center of a sandbagging pit.

I guessed aloud that it was more likely Conshohocken!

and to my surprise he confirmed the coincidence

coming full circle to the gas station

where I'd once stopped for fuel... and he'd worked.

We left them with rubber band hand games, remember?

Stretched over pinkie and thumb

the idea was to release it by moving the fingers on the same hand just so,

but it was their facial and body contortions that made us all laugh...

We were still laughing as our chopper lifted off for the next LZ and we waved goodbye.

Goodbye to where the war was fought and the nightmares began.

Hello to all those dear nicknamed and anonymous faces we saw

that still raise questions after all these years like...

Did that kid make it home OK to Conshohocken?

"Dug In" Ken White
J. Holley Watts

Touch

My fingers touch your face

to trace the echoes of laughter around your eyes.

The light stubble of early evening

whispers gray upon your cheeks.

I see your eyes shift focus to Memory

and you are gone, too quickly for me to follow.

I can only wait for your return,

pick up the pieces (there are always pieces),

and welcome you home.

Invisible scents, sights and sounds

spirit you away each time

compressing past into present.

While I fall prey to the speed of your leaving

I am also witness to your return.

My fingers touch your face

to trace the echoes of pain around your eyes

and we hold each other so close

even the memories can't get through.
J. Holley Watts

Where Can I Find Them?

We volunteered to go to war.

Took games to the troops to make them smile

and were all the world like the girl next door

with a touch of home for a little while.

To base camps, hospitals and LZs

we'd float, we'd fly, we'd drive

and hoped, somehow, to remember them

would keep each one alive.

War showed us no such kindness

so to honor them instead

we carved their names in granite walls

to be remembered, touched and read.

But those lists of names are useless

when it's SKEETER, DUTCH or BRO

FOUR EYES, GRAMPS or GREASER

whose real names we didn't know.

Where can I find them on The Wall?

To match a name with the face we knew,

to find each one who gave their all

like SKI, POPS, CORKY, KID or STU.

I played cribbage with THE COWBOY

and wrote letters home for BUZZ

but I can't tell you who they were.

I just know that each one was.

They introduced themselves to us as

STONEY, BIG MIKE, ACE and BEAR,

That's how we see and hear them still

– just can't find them anywhere.

Some rearranged their given names

or shortened them instead,

like SMITTY, FOX and BUD,

YANK, MACK, LT and RED.

They talked about their favorite things;

CHIP's girl, SLY's dog, BUCK's car.

If we had a roll call now

I couldn't tell you who they are.

They went by MOS and size

Like GUNNY, DOC and TOO TALL PAUL.

I'd bridge that gap and ease my pain

if there were nicknames on The Wall.

It's easy to remember

RUSTY, GABBY, SWEDE or JER.

They're locked inside my memory

and not going anywhere...

But I can't reach out and touch their names

that I know are on The Wall.

You see, I never got to say goodbye, or

Welcome Home – that, most of all.
Hope Springs

Hope J. Springs is the stage name of Jacinda Smith who grew up in Memphis, TN. She earned a BA in English from the University of Memphis in Tennessee and a Masters in Teaching from Howard University in Washington, D.C. Currently a Middle School Instructor, Hope's goal is to foster hope and healing in people through her written and spoken words. She recently released her debut novel, Jerks to Gentle Men, and is currently working on a book of poetry. She lives in Southern Maryland with her family and can be contacted at hopejsprings@gmail.com.
Hope Springs

My Grandfather's Story

There was once a man from Tyro, Mississippi

Who served his country oh so simply

When the contest was held on who could make the best hair cut

Battalion barber was what my grandfather grabbed up

He was part of the cleanup crew

He said that while serving after World War II

That's all he, thankfully, had orders to do

One can only imagine what he saw and heard from veterans like you.

On his return from Japan, he no doubt became a better man

and grandfather to offspring he didn't necessarily plan

Or did he?

He and his wife, together with God would raise ten educated children

Who produced many more who now serve the world on a mission

The oldest is a CPA, the youngest in college to become a doctor

In between are teachers, managers, therapists, artists and authors

He was an amazing man, who acquired and farmed over 600 acres

Land that he, his wife, eight daughters and two sons would till like Quakers

Even though he has passed on, his memory still carries a heavy load

So heavy he has a street in Mississippi named after him officially called Claude Greene Road.

His story makes me and my family truly understand

What it means to be an American Veteran

Here's to you all! My war torn sisters and brothers!

We honor you this day for ALL you've survived and suffered!
Hope Springs

My Uncle Van Louis's Story

My Uncle's Van Louis's Story turned out quite differently from his father's, which is why it's hard for me to put it in beautiful form for you fellow authors.

I speak to my uncle only for a moment when I go home

What he suffered in war has made his mind grow terrible sores,

Flashbacks, hallucinations, gut wrenching pain

Is what my uncle has lived with since coming out of Vietnam's reign.

No his name is not carved into this hallowed wall

But he is not the uncle I used to know before he answered Vietnam's call.

He once had a beautiful life, a beautiful wife with the promise of kids

Now he stares blankly into the world, barely making amends.

His sisters take good care of him now,

God has blessed him with one for each day of the week

And when I grow weary of my trials,

His trials make me rethink.

Here's to you all! My war torn sisters and brothers!

We honor you this and every day for ALL you've survived and suffered!

To Veterans on Memorial Day \- May 30, 2011
V. K. Inman

V. K. served as 3rd Platoon Commander of Echo Company, 2nd Btn., 5th Marines from November 1969 to March 1970 in the Danang area of Vietnam. V.K. kept himself busy as a teacher for the deaf and has remained active in the Marine Corps Reserve where he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. Westminster Media published an audiotape by V.K. titled: Our Most Noble Victory \--Poems on the Vietnam Experience.
V. K. Inman

For the Ungrateful Nation

Sixteen years too late,

a visitor in a country club locker room,

the words slipped from my lips,

"When I was in Vietnam..."

"You were in Vietnam?"

Words tinged with a little astonishment.

"Yes."

A hand was extended,

Thanks, thank you for fighting for our country."

What do you say?

A moment of shock,

then up-bringing kicks in.

"Your welcome."

Fighting for our country?

You rich country club boys,

you never went to war.

Ernie, over there,

screening sand in the ash trays,

he was in 'Nam.

But he doesn't know

why he fought and limps

on a prosthetic leg.

You can be damn sure it wasn't for you.

Do you think we fought

so that you could play golf?

Do you really think Ernie

thought no more of his leg than that?

This nation visits the Wall and reads the names...

gives free care in a hundred hospitals...

remembers Veterans Day...

Does trying count?

When will you ever begin to understand?

It was not for you.

It was for us we fought and died.
V. K. Inman

For the History Teachers

You do not honor the dead

with your talk of the unjust war.

Though some things about it were.

Poor boys fought together

from West Virginia, Main, Watts, Harlem

and the Ponobscot Indian reservation.

How wrong it seemed that we sent only our poor,

for the rich were in college

and the National Guard doing their six and six.

You do not honor the dead,

when you call them victims

of a bad society gone worse.

When you expose the hoax of Tonkin,

tell it all;

not just the self justifying truth

to ease the consciousness of rich boys

as they explain to their grandchildren

why they didn't go.

Talk of our nation, of laws and obligations,

talk of expatriates and LSD spaced-out hippies.

Tell how some men wore hard hats,

waved flags, and served in the Guard,

and other men screamed "Hell no...,"

and dropped out.

And talk of men who believed in integrity

and saw the way out as only straight ahead.

Tell the Afros, Navahos, Chicanos and Rednecks

often afraid to give their reasons, served-

drafted we did not resist,

or volunteered preempting the inevitable-

covered each other's ass,

stopped each other's sucking chest wounds,

and even picked up our buddies' pieces

trying our best to stack

the right livers, limbs, and severed heads

with their owners' disemboweled bodies.

We were not poor boys and victims.

We were America's best.

"Bunker" R. Epstein

V. K. Inman

Le Nam (2)

This is a wasteland

No more a place

Where farmers in conical hats

Move in a line across the paddies planting rice.

It must have been colorful here,

with the blue and white clothed farmers,

Orange clad Buddhist monks,

Yellow and red banners flying above the village.

There were homes here, children, mothers, grandfathers

And young men all living together.

There was once a market in this village

With squealing pigs and hawkers.

Now there are fields of weeds and wild rice, craters,

Untended graves, bunkers where homes used to be.

And there are still children, women, and very old men

Who cannot comprehend it all.
V. K. Inman

He Hated

He laughed and joked

And hated it all.

We knew he did.

The way he talked about home,

About his folks,

And the way he complained

About sleeping in the rain,

About eating from cans,

About killing men.

He hated it

And through him

We all remembered that we hated it too.

He made it easier on us.

He laughed and joked and

Talked about going home.

But he never did.
Gerald "Rod" Kane

Rod was a 19-year old combat medic with the First Cavalry Division (Airborne), 1965. He is the author of Veterans Day, A Viet Nam Memoir, and a founding member of The Memorial Day Writers' Project. Rod passed away in 1999.
Gerald "Rod" Kane

It's My Job

First, I take care of them,

day by day,

athlete's foot, pyorrhea.

Then I watch them on the trails,

check them constantly for the fever.

The shit hits the fan.

Everyone tries to kill each other.

I have to try to save them.

Back in base, I diagnose,

hour to hour,

new eyeglasses, diarrhea.

On perimeter guard, we relax,

read old love letters from Maria.

The shit hits the fan.

Everyone tries to kill each other.

I have to try to save them.

It becomes a routine,

minute by minute,

self-inflicted wounds, gonorrhea.

We lie back, enjoy some beers,

nickname the new guy, Beaver Cleaver.

The shit hits the fan.

Everyone tries to kill each other.

I have to try to save them.

I'm running out of time,

nothing's changed,

since World War II or Korea.

The captain said I could go home.

I say "I don't fucking believe ya."

The shit hits the fan.

Everyone tries to kill each other.

I have to try to save them.
Gary Lillie

Each time Gary came to the Wall, he stopped by The Memorial Day Writers' Project Tent and sat quietly in the audience listening to poetry and songs presented by his fellow veterans. Thankfully, I always recognized Gary and would ask him if he had anything to read. Out of his pocket would come several poems, such as those provided below. Gary was a Seabee and spent most of his time supporting construction projects in and around Chu Lai, Vietnam. Gary was veteran advocate and was co-host of a veteran's radio program (AM 990) in Ann Arbor, MI. A drunk driver ran him down as he walked near his home late one night in August of 2011.
Gary Lillie

It Don't Mean Nothin'

A friend of mine died on Saturday

in a town about an hour away

my memory's not what it used to be

it seems I lost it to PTSD

So I missed the funeral...

it don't mean nothin'

"It don't mean nothin'" the grunts all said

when a friend was either torn or dead

they built a wall around their heart

not man nor Hell could ever part

That helped you survive...

it don't mean nothin'

We often talked of survival's reward

if we made it to that Freedom Bird

but back in The World it got real mean

it wasn't exactly the American dream

So we stepped in the closet...

it don't mean nothin'

It seems the country that we'd just left

was a whole lot friendlier to us vets

funny how things get turned around

we weren't even sure what it was we'd done

Whatever it was...

it don't mean nothin'

We had a time when we got off track

but we got those monkeys off our back

and now the American people express

the pride they have in the Vietnam vet

Call it what they will...

it don't mean nothin'
Gary Lillie

Jim & David B

David B was walking point

when we hit the shit on that trail

they got David with the opening rounds

and down he goes with a bad leg wound

we lay separated as he lay bleeding

and things were as bad as I'd ever seen

now almost thirty years have gone

and David calls me on the phone

Jim tells the story and I just listen

The strain's still there as I hear Jim say

how the ambush exploded that awful day

in the triple-canopy of Vietnam

where men and beasts behave as one

and fear can make your blood run cold

while steamy sweat runs from every pore

amid din and chaos and frantic screams

while men react and moments freeze

and where in the hell is God

Jim said they spoke for hours on end

of firebases and trails and friends

they laughed and joked in a familiar way

like it all just happened yesterday

then the easy talk took a new direction

so he half expected David's question

remember what it was like that day

it was like they were running the jungle

through a wood chipper

The chips and leaves and crud and limbs

poured down, around and on us said Jim

like the busy spout of a giant wood chipper

I admit my response was a little bewildered

if it was that bad how did you save David B

the trick said Jim is fire superiority

bring up the M-60, put the M-16s

on 'rock 'n roll'then on a signal open up

make the other guys keep their heads low

Two of us go and grab his ass

kept waiting to get one in the back

course the pucker factor's awfully high

couldn't believe it when we didn't die

then David gives up the phone to his wife

thank you for saving my husband's life

I said he'd have done the same for me

still I get a tear and choked up you see

...pretty emotional stuff

We threw him in and the Dustoff left

and it was back to work for the rest of us

never knew what became of him

that's just the way it was back then

from then I worried when my mind would roam

to the lie I told to a friend gone home

but David said he understood

it wasn't just me, anyone would

I told David he wouldn't lose his foot

History tells of the flaccid 10,000

who ran to Canada to avoid Vietnam

but seldom mentions the 40,000

who came south to join in our fight for freedom

now a memorial stands in the city of Windsor

at Dieppe Park, by the Detroit River

it bears the names of some northern brothers

but thankfully not David's...like the rest of us

it was a part of him that was lost

The story's true but never wonder

what Vietnam vets wouldn't do for a brother

nor how much love they all still share

that's not the only message there

it's what they did when just nineteen

while others clung to children's dreams

and what professionals they became

the best damn citizen-soldiers

to ever strap on a ruck'

(With warmest esteem for the American 'Grunt')
Gary Lillie

I Could Have Done Without You

"I helped you out" she said

"I was a protester during the war

I also protested for various rights

there was so much to protest for."

...and the Vietnam Vet just stared

at her self-satisfied self

She looked so proud and smug

arrogant, to be sure

never questioned about her deeds

she had a scornful air

...and once again he smelled

the air of a dying friend

"I helped you out," she said

and marched on Washington, DC"

"It was all just utterly brilliant!

We were so full of life, you see."

...and once more he flashed back

to his best friend's final breath

She smiled down her nose at him

thinking "It feels good to be correct."

no other thought ever occurs to her

But he thought back to Tet

when his weary friend took papers

from the body of the dead NVA

"Hang on comrades" the interpreter read

"The American peace movement grows.

They can't hang on much longer

glorious victory will be ours."

...and the bewildered, weary grunts

just stood and stared at the ground

"We were there in Chicago" she boasted

"when the Democrat's party convened.

1968 it was, a truly awesome scene."

It was about that time that Wilson

his second string center in high school

stepped on a mine near Tam Ky

"My boy friend burned his draft card

and later we burned the flag

and then we burned tokes all around

I guess I'm starting to brag!

While they argued the shape of the table

...in Paris there was time to burn

"We turned out at the airports

I really shouldn't expound

but we wanted the vets returning

to realize they were wrong."

That night a 20-year-old basket case

said, "Thanks America" and cocked his gun

"We shouldn't have even been there

it was a civil war, comprehend?

and us supporting a government

neither of nor for the common man"

While at a refuge camp, a family is dragged

to a plane taking them back to Vietnam.

"We were totally proven right

history has shown that's true

everything you see and read

will back me through-and-through"

It helped that point when the protesters

became the teachers of our youth

"We may have made a mistake

with Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge

but the Cambodians are finally free

and their country's on the move."

...and again, some say the estimates were high

and only one third of all Cambodians died

"Well, I really must be going

I merely want you to know

we were only doing it for our boys

we just wanted to bring you home."

...and he could only stare and think

"Thanks, I could've done without you."
Gary Lillie

I Wasn't a Grunt

"Hot" I answered

They always ask it

"What was it like in Vietnam?"

"Hot"

I said again

Only this time I'm talking to myself

because they're no longer there

and neither am I

I'm 11,000 miles

and months, years away

but it was yesterday

or a few hours ago

or last night

The heat hit you like a wall

It was the first thing you felt

as you unloaded from the plane

that and the dust

The dust!

it seemed ankle deep

red

clinging

swirling

it covered everything

stuck to everything

got into everything

impregnated everything

except where there was sand

white

blinding

reflecting

sand

reflecting the heat

"You're lucky

it wasn't humid

like in Michigan'

"Michigan...

Michigan is an arid desert"

Then how did you take it?

You just look at them and think

'name the choice'

And then they ask

"See any action?"

(that's always next)

A swirl of memories

fill your mind

like the red

swirling dust

flashbacks?

No

that's what grunts have

(thank God, I wasn't a grunt)

and the medics

and nurses

and doctors

and anyone else

who ever saw

bodies torn apart

without a head

inside out

shot full of holes

like Swiss cheese

twisted

in embarrassing positions

(are the dead

ever embarrassed?)

then...

maybe it is flashbacks

Again you see the grunts

red-dusty

red-dirty

sweaty

sweat stained

weeks old sweat

on their torn

filthy

worn-out

fatigues

greens

they were called

but faded near-white

the color of sweat stains

by the omnipotent sun

It wasn't just the

greens

that were worn

the eyes...

they too

were almost used up

old and far away

when was the last time

they laughed and smiled?

at least at something

people in

The World

would understand

how could they understand this?

Grunts go

out on patrol

while we watch them

walk past

loaded down

with gear

Weapons:

an M-14 rifle

rusted orange

"How do you get the rust off ?"

"Hit it on a stump."

Indifferent

"But your life depends on it."

He gives you a look—

This is living?

The medics

were issued 45s

but most of them carried

extra field dressings instead

You go out unarmed?"

"When I need a weapon

I'm too busy to use one

and when

I really need one

don't worry

there's plenty

laying around

I can take my pick"

Some grunts

carried their M-14s

slung

over their shoulders

and a pump shotgun

in their hands

They walked up front

Packs, canteens

Ammo

plenty of ammo

water

plenty

of water

grenades, fragmentation

grenades, concussion

grenades, smoke

3.5 rocket launcher rounds

for some

mortar rounds

for others

unless they actually carried

the 3.5

or the mortar

or its base plate

or the M-60

('hog' they called it)

or its ammo

"How much do you carry?"

"The pack's 65 pounds

but it's over 100

by the time you add

everything else"

"How do you do it?"

The look again--

We work in their camp

while some of them

lay around

and try to sleep

in the day's heat

because tonight

they go to work

Ambush!

into the jungle

thank God

I don't have to go

into the jungle

thank God

I sleep on a cot tonight

did I say it?

in case I haven't lately

thank you God

because

I'm not a grunt

I don't have to go

out into the jungle

and because

I sleep on a cot tonight

under a tin roof

because

I'm not a grunt

and please

watch over the grunts

tonight, God

because

tonight they work

In the morning

we drive by

the helicopter pads

Operation!

we look in silence

dozens of

dark-green choppers

in the pre-dawn

dirty

oily

shaking

as they run up their engines...

the old Sikorskis

Whining

Whopping

gliding along

a foot above the ground

getting in position

as if in anticipation...

the sleek Hueys

All wait for their cargo

of 19-year-old boys

pushing 60

hoping

to see 20

Standing alone

in groups

silently staring

at their boots

nervous laughter

loaded packs

and weapons

stacked nearby

waiting

for their destiny

We drive by

Wondering

what they're thinking

knowing

what they're thinking

While we work

Building

the sun screams at us

we hear

the Hueys

whop,whop,whop

skirt the ground

whop,whop,whop

lift over tree lines

whop,whop,whop

rush to the shore

whop,whop,whop

over the shore

whop,whop,whop

past the shore

whop,whop,whop

to the white ship sitting

just this side of

the horizon

with the red cross

on its side

A frantic landing

on the ship's deck

too far away

to see the scramble

men and women

grab the stretcher

or the limp body

slumped in a poncho

Then it lifts off

whop,whop,whop

lowers its nose

whop,whop,whop

and heads back for more

whop,whop,whop

always more

whop, whop

all day long

whop

chopper after chopper

carrying their precious

groaning

screaming

moaning

still

cargo

to the glistening white ship

that sits in the tropical sea

under the tropical sun

off the tropical beach

of this tropical land

inhabited by tropical people

with blank faces

and SKSs

We ride to our job

along the coastal plains

past the coastal hills

where gunships

blast a hillside

with rockets and Gatlings

artillery pounds a slope

with Willy Peter

Marines sweep paddies

patrols head out

grunts flush snipers

from the spider traps

"Fire in the hole!"

tanks belch fire

from their snouts

and the ground burns.

You see

the three white contrails

high in the sky

and the B-52s

(BUFFS-Big Ugly Flying Fuckers)

shorten some hills

while the ground trembles

beneath you

and the pounding

thumping

sound reaches you

and the hills turn to dust

for two miles

"Did you see any action?"

they ask again

Your mind snaps back

"No

They're disappointed

they hoped

you could tell them

war stories

but all you can tell them is

you had it easy

compared to others

"I wasn't a grunt

I just built things"

"What'd you build?"

"Things out of wood

sometimes concrete

sometimes steel

except

I wasn't a steelworker

so I worked mainly

with wood

and concrete"

"Was it important stuff?"

I guess it was all important"

"Hold it"

says the young marine

'Damn, this is dehumanizing'

you think

"Damn, this is dehumanizing"

you say out loud

and the big black marine

sits down next to you

in the four-hole outhouse

and answers with a grunt

You look at him

out of the corner of your eye

at least I can shower tonight

you think

and put on my clean pants

he hasn't done either

in about six weeks

by his looks

and his smell

he's a grunt

thank God

I'm not a grunt

The rear hatch slams

as they slide

the cut-off 50 gallon drum

out from under you

with its load of slop

fuel oil and feces

"Three more to go, hold It!"

the two grunts say again

"Anything to read in here?"

the black marine asks

"Stars and Stripes over here"

I answer

and hand it to him

The two young marines

slide the four refills under you

"OK, go ahead"

"Man, I can't wait

to get outta

this fuckin' place

and back to civilization"

The black marine

takes the filthy copy

of the Stars and Stripes

that I offer

"Le's see

if they got anythin' in here

'bout the war

See how we're doin"'

"It says we're winning"

I answer

"Someone better tell Chuck"

he mutters

Yeah, I built

those four-holers

shit-burners

they and those

who worked on them

were called

but I helped

my battalion build

a 10,000 foot runway, too

and warehouses

and 1400+ hooches

and drainage systems

and galleys

and a firebase

and a hospital

(stretching the word)

the hospital...

Sharon Lane

was killed in it

two years later

in 1968

during an NVA rocket attack

as she lay across wounded

Vietnamese civilians

protecting them

from the rockets

We built every day

we built

during the monsoons

and our clothes

were never dry

and our skin

turned white and wrinkled

and the mud was over

the tops of our boots

which never dried out

and our feet rotted

and we were walking

sores

and rashes

and rot

We built

before the monsoons

under the angry sun

one day it was 138

while we nailed steel roofs

but mostly it was

only in the 110s

or 120s

it was just that one

10 day stretch

in the 130s

a few times

it was merely

in the 90s

and one night

it dropped

to 85 degrees

and I caught a cold

and couldn't shake it

for a week

it was

as if Sol

who's rays build life

was saying he didn't like

what we were doing

with the napalm

and the bombs

and the Agent Orange

"Did you ever get exposed to it?"

"What, the Agent Orange?

Yeah

but it didn't do anything to me."

how was I to know

they were connected?

the time I woke up

and my skivvies

were full of blood

from bleeding

through my penis

a few days

after we were sprayed—

they said it wouldn't hurt us

"I hear it gives you cancer."

"It does, but I've been lucky"

lucky I didn't have kids

with the birth defects

that can last

seven generations

"Was it pretty?"

"What?"

"Vietnam

was it pretty"

"Under any other circumstances

it was beautiful"

you remember

Time to go to work

the sky's growing light

the horizon's streaked

brilliant red

the fishermen paddle

their round

woven

palm boats

out to sea

(how do they go

in a straight line

in a round boat

while paddling

from just one side?)

past the navy ships

anchored off shore

"Is the white ship

out there?"

"No"

thank God

at least around here

the grunts

are safe

for today

relatively speaking

It's beautiful

Vietnam is

looking across

the mouth of the river

up the beach

under the palm trees

heading north

along the sea

where does it go?

up there

along the beach

of the South China Sea

and into the dark

of the enemy-controlled

island

right there

across the river

At night

the island

spews tracers

at us for days

weeks

trying to touch off

the pallets of napalm BR>and 250 pounders

and 500 pounders

and artillery rounds

unloaded from LSTs

that pull up

right here

on our side

of the river

The bombs and ammo

are stacked

next to our camp

and the Marines

fire back

and our tracers

go back

to their side of the river

and the bombs and ammo sit

and never go off

and we go back to sleep

and eventually we think

it's stopped

the machine gun duels

until we pull

night bunker watch

and find out

we've only been

sleeping through it

and the tracers

still visit each other

every night

green in

red out

and the choppers

still roar

100 feet over our heads

every night

exhaustion

will do that

make you think

the war has stopped

We load in our trucks

for another day's work

it'll be hot again

don't set your tools down

in the sun

or they'll blister

your hands

when you pick them up

and don't take too long

nailing down the steel roof

or the heat

will burn your feet

through the soles

of your boots

The squad leader growls

"Is the water in the truck?

Then let's roll."

Man, I hate this place

But, thank you God

cause, I'm not a grunt

and please, God

take care of them

today, at least

they're all so young

but, if you do see

them coming

God

take them to you

'cause, they've earned it

"What about it?"

"What?"

"How do you feel?

about the war  
and what you did."

I shake my mind

force it to think

in today time

I'm back now

it's today again

it's here now

I'm back with this person

in this time

in this place

and they want to know

I simply answer

"I just thank God

I wasn't a grunt"

In memory of 58,000+named on The Wall
Wayne Karlin

Wayne Karlin served in the United States Marine Corps in Vietnam, 1966-1967. He is the author of ten books, both fiction and non-fiction. His latest book is Wandering Souls: Journeys with the Dead and the Living in Viet Nam (Nation Books, 2009). The essay below was read at the MDWP tent Memorial Day 2011.
Wayne Karlin

Memorial Day

Whenever I go to the Vietnam Veterans' memorial in Washington, I always fear that the etched names on the wall, written on my reflection, will call up from my mind again that first time I saw the American dead: that line of Marines lying in the red mud outside the B-Med tent at Ky Ha—casualties of, I found out years later, an operation with a pretty high school prom-theme name, Harvest Moon. Their faces were covered with those useless ponchos we had, but their legs and feet were sticking out. I always fear I'll see that line draining at the base of the wall, and sometimes I have. But it's been a long time since I had that moment of realization every soldier must have when he sees dead men wearing the so-familiar accoutrements of his own uniform and equipment, that recognition of his own mortality so alien to the mind of an 18 or 19 year old, and. I don't want to see those reaped boys like that anymore, faceless and wearing my uniform. I'm not the one dead and I would like to honor them, for once, without the intrusion of my own thankfulness at surviving.

I don't know how well that will work out.

At the Wall, I'll search out the names of people who were in my outfit. But I also go to see one name in particular, that of Lance Corporal James Childers, who died instead of me somewhere near Marble Mountain, Danang, in the year 1967.

The above is a dramatic statement, and a true one, but I don't want to make too much here of my own combat experience. I extended my tour some six months for duty as a helicopter gunner out of both boredom and guilt, but the fly time for gunners, at least in the Marine Corps, was rotated and hence broken by long periods when we were not, as we said, on flight pay, and the war for me, as I suspect its was for many others, consisted of long stretches of boredom, sleeplessness, discomfort, mindless work, occasional hilarity, petty harassments, and small moral erosions, interspersed with moments of intense excitement and sometimes terror. Most of the latter, of course, took place when I was flying.

The missions I remember the most vividly were the night medevacs: hanging over a machine gun, searching the Quang Tri blackness, waiting for the streams of green North Vietnamese tracers to come flying up towards the aircraft; when they did my own tracers flashing red, curving towards the ground: an image still so strong that it's ruined me for video games. The bottom would suddenly drop out of the world like a released trap door and we'd fall and land hard and they'd bring in the wounded and the dead while we'd feel the helicopter straining to lift off and be out of danger: we'd feel that in the tissues of our bodies. The wounded and the dead would lie on the deck around the gun mounts, the living holding on to each other, bleeding into each other's wounds, and we'd get out of there. And when we landed the stretcher bearers would carry out the hurt and unceremoniously drag out the dead and we'd wash the blood and other fluids off the deck with a hose and take off again to scoop up another load of names to be put on that black Wall near Constitution Avenue.

James Childers died in what was to have been the last week of the war for him. Our squadron was rotating to Okinawa to regroup and receive new aircraft, and he and I were in the small contingent left behind as a transition team.

It was the second time I had rotated to Okinawa: my other squadron had gone there and disbanded after a seven-month stint in Vietnam. The statistics of its tour there are perhaps telling of what it meant to be in a helicopter squadron in Vietnam in 1966-1967. According to a base newspaper clipping I still have, the squadron had flown over 25,000 hours during those seven months and participated in more than a dozen operations, including seven major pushes along the DMZ. The article mentions that the squadron averaged more than 200 medevacs a month, 25 per cent of them flown at night, and that seven aircraft were lost during this period. It tells how one helicopter was brought back to base with more than 500 bullet holes in it, and another with 800. These last facts don't seem accurate to me: the holes were probably caused by shrapnel, not bullets. But holes they were.

The article does not mention the devastation that a North Vietnamese Army 12.7 mm or quad-50 caliber machine gun can wreak on low flying helicopters, nor does it tell of Helicopter Valley, that deadly area near the Rockpile scattered with the crushed grasshoppers of shot-down helicopters, nor of the aircraft and crewman lost when one of our flights flew into a barrage of American artillery on its way to an emergency landing zone.

After my other squadron had disbanded, I came back to finish out my tour. It was my last week, and I was down to the last three days, but I was still scheduled to fly. The transition and the war had left both our squadron and the replacement squadron short-handed and everybody had to do everything. Childers and I were often thrown together on details that week. We were friends, but not particularly close—what we would call military acquaintances.

The facts of his death are simple enough. I was scheduled to be on standby flight status that night, but for a reason I've never known, I was told to switch times with him: Childers was scheduled to fly the next day. That night, the aircraft he was assigned to was called out on an emergency resupply mission to a hill near Danang. The helicopter was on approach when it came under fire. A single bullet penetrated it and the body of James Stanley Bernard Childers, entering just below the bottom edge of his flack jacket. He died an hour later on an operating table in Charlie Med, across the road from the Marble Mountain base camp.

It was not an unusual way for a helicopter crewman to die, nor do I consider the way we happened to switch places particularly miraculous. Freaks of fate become mundane in a war. For the next two days I flew his missions and I was more terrified than I had ever been. But the flights were all milk runs and I survived.

I survived and he didn't, and it was out of this simplest of reasons that memorials are built in the first place, and that I wanted to stop the flow of this narrative and remember James Childers, a nineteen year old boy I didn't know too well, but who died in my place and in your name, one of 58,234 who did the same.
Ron Capps

Ron Capps, Director of the Veterans Writing Project, was a soldier for 25 years and has spent time with special operations forces in central Africa, a combat tour in Afghanistan, and as an international peacekeeper in Darfur. Ron served as a Foreign Service officer from 1994-2008 with postings in Kosovo, Rwanda, Iraq, and Sudan. Ron works as a freelance writer and directs the Veterans Writing Project, a non-profit organization that provides no-cost writing seminars and workshops for veterans in the Washington metro area. This following is an excerpt from his upcoming memoir The French Lieutenant's iPod: Stories from a Dozen Years of War.
Ron Capps

Deus ex Machina

Faking it. That's what I'm doing every day when people blithely ask, "How are you?" What would they do if I said, "Well, Kristen, now that you ask, I'm a complete mess. I have these visions of dead people in my head and I can't feel my hands sometimes. And you know, I think pretty soon I'm going to collapse into a pile of quivering goo. Of course, that's if I don't start wearing a tinfoil tiara and proclaiming that the TV is emitting death rays, first. But enough about me, how are you?" What would they say?

Of course I'm not going to say that. No one really wants to know how you feel when he or she asks. So I say, "All right, you?" and keep moving, wringing my hands and staring at the ground hoping to hell no one speaks to me or sits with me at breakfast expecting me to make polite conversation.

That's how things are these days. I'm in Afghanistan and my brain is broken. I have to decide what to do: go to treatment and risk my job or keep faking it and risk my guys' lives. It sucks, but is what it is. There aren't any other options.

There is no deus ex machina to come down from the rafters and solve this because this is not a Greek tragedy. It's is my puny little personal catastrophe and no god will come down to explain why things are just so magnificently screwed up inside my head. No god will come to explain why I am forced to sit fecklessly by as these horrible, repulsive pictures fester in my head and shackle my sway over my thoughts and my dreams - while all the while the world goes rolling merrily by and everyone is just so fucking chirpy and buoyant.

Man, I am up to here with chirpy. Don't these people know about the ones who were murdered? What about the ones who were burned, raped, humiliated, tortured? No, I guess they don't remember, the Chirpy Bastards. Is it just me who feels this way? Maybe the Chirpy Bastards do know about the killings and burnings and rapes and everyone else in the whole world can just process this stuff better than I can. Maybe I am just some freak show repository for the carny House of Horrors. Maybe my brain is stuck in the on position while the Records Division plays and replays the same hideous stacks of snuff porn on the jumbotron in my brain.

And now I have the wonderful option of taking medication that can make me feel better so I can do my job but - and this is the Catch 22 of this generation's war - if I take the medication I can lose my security clearance and I'll lose my job and my house. Nice goddam choice: crazy or homeless.

Am I destined to lie awake in bed all night rocking with these horrible pictures flashing on the drive-in movie screen of my mind? Yeah way up there on the big screen, on a screen as big as a prairie so you can't just blink and make it go away. Way up there, on the Big Board in Technicolor and Panavision and Stereoscope, it's filled with big and garish and loud and violent awfulness. It's wide-angle everything I hate and fear as big as Mount Rushmore. It's a million gigabytes of pixilated gimlet mayhem blurring out the rest of the stuff in my head and it's rocking on full-auto. It looks like unadulterated hell like it's straight out of a Hieronymus Bosch painting on acid, like Disney's evil twin Skippy made something really special just for me.

Oh, and it's a babe gone bad; it's crude and vulgar and it's so horny for me that it's licking its lips like a junkie whore aching for a hit. And all I can do is lie there curled up in a ball like a worthless little shit, dreading the dawn because it means I'll have to get up and face the world but hating the dark because it's in the dark where all these things hide. And after the day comes another night and the dark just means I'll have to do this all over again with the pictures all up there on the drive-in movie screen. Damn.

Or I can take the medication and lose my house. For Christ's sake, I'm not going to be homeless, am I? Will I end up like those people on the street begging for change, talking to the satellites and jamming to the music of the spheres? Did they start off seeing pictures in their dreams that made them not want to go to sleep? Did they start off hiding from their friends so they wouldn't have to talk to the Chirpy Bastards? So, no shit, is this the beginning of a major league downward spiral where I start with a great wife and a job I love and a house in the suburbs but I end up preaching to crack dealers on street corners in neighborhoods where the cops don't care about just another sick puppy who's wearing clothes out of the lending closet at the COGIC while chattering to himself about conspiracy theories and listening to The Voices?

Is this just some lame-ass chemical imbalance or is this Fortuna getting me back for not chipping a buck to the guy on the corner every day? Is that where I'm headed, for a long downspin on the wheel? Well what about the change I used give to the street trumpeter in Montreal? What about the bags of food to the street mamas in Kigali? Or the clothes and the carpet and the refrigerator I gave to the guys who lost their houses in Prishtina? Don't those count? Don't I get some points for those? Or is it just my turn for a downward spin on Fortuna's wheel? Well if that's it, ok, let's rock and roll. Let's get it on, baby! I want to go with it and get it over with and get my goddam life back. I'm sick of this. I'm sick of feeling like I'm mostly dead, like I just inhabit this body in some god- awful 1950's sci-fi B movie. I'm sick of avoiding the Chirpy Bastards. I'm sick of shaking and rolling up into a ball on the floor for a good cry when these pictures come to me in the middle of the night.

But some days are better than others.

Some days I feel pretty good. Some days I really do feel All Right. But on those days I wonder what All Right is. How long has it been since I really was All Right. How long have I been like this? What does All Right really feel like? Is it just not feeling like you just got off the three-night red-eye from Kyrgyzstan? Is it just that you can feel your hands and arms and you don't feel like someone in your family just died? Is it just sleeping through the night? Is it just having a funny or sexy or weird dream without having burned bodies and Kalashnikovs in supporting roles? Well, sometimes I do feel like that. Sometimes I do feel All Right.

Sometimes I can look at other people and want to talk with them, to listen to their stories and tell them mine. Sometimes I do laugh at jokes. Sometimes I think I can write a funny song or a pretty song on my guitar instead of jeremiads about loss or abandonment or drinking yourself to death. Sometimes I feel so good I can look at a young woman - ok, let's be realistic, a 30-year-old - and think, if I hold her glance for just a moment, that maybe she likes older guys instead of wondering if she's just freaked out because she can see all the screwed up stuff that spins around in my head like out-takes from an Exorcist movie. Sometimes I do feel like that. Some days are better than others.
William Carrington

William (Lad) Carrington used to ride his Harley from North Carolina to participate in Rolling Thunder and one day discovered The Memorial Day Writers' Project. Lad is an author, journalist, poet, historian, and ex radio announcer.

In his own words: There can be no right or wrong categories attached to those who serve. Those labels are reserved for governments and ideologies. Those who serve and especially those who in their service pay the ultimate price are always in the right, because they have only done what they were asked to do.

So I go to the wall because by the grace of God my name is not written there. I go because I, and all of us, owe something to those whose names are on that wall. Because that wall represents all of the Americans who have paid that price, and the rest of us have inherited the country and the benefits bought by their sacrifice.

You cannot visit that wall without feeling the spirits that are represented there. We should all go there and show those who survived, and if they are looking down on us, those whose names are written there, that even if it is late in coming a grateful nation remembers and stops to say thank you.

Mark Raab

William Carrington

Another Wall

Around our Nation's Capitol

In Washington DC

Are monuments and statues

To those who shaped our history

Some are tall and mighty

Their grandeur unsurpassed

They remind us of the stature

Of our leaders from the past

The monuments are gigantic

Like the spirits there portrayed

Jefferson, Washington, and Lincoln

Among those who paved our way

But there are some more subtle

Around the National Mall

Three that aren't so high — just long

They are only simple walls

These walls don't reach to lofty heights

With figures looking down

They are low and simple in design

And snake along the ground

They don't inspire cheers and shouts

Provoke quiet respect instead

These tributes enshrine the ones who sleep

In the Bivouac of the Dead

Inscribed along each granite face

Each carved with skill and care

The names of those who laid their lives

Upon freedom's alter there

They paid the ultimate sacrifice

Our country asked them for

They paid for freedom — ours today

That they never would enjoy

Our Nation's National Treasure

Is the life-blood of its youth

It's more valuable than gold or oil

More precious than right or truth

Columbia's grown sad and weary

She needs peace now most of all

She doesn't want another sacrifice

And we don't need another Wall
William Carrington

Yesterday's Heroes

We're in a brand new era

The country's in a daze

Our hearts are all inspired

Our spirits in ablaze

We stand together holding hands

We're thinking now as one

For nothing so united us

As the hell of 911

We got back up and standing

Dusted off and struck right back

We made our enemy hurt and cry

For their cowardly attack

Now we have some brand new heroes

In uniforms and suits

Some had tried to stop the perps

Some just doing what they do

Some were sent to foreign lands

To stop the infidel

Some others went to despot town

To ring the Freedom Bell

But there are other heroes

From not so long ago

They went away - their duty strong

Where they were asked to go

They didn't fight a techno war

Or wrap it up in days

They didn't die in handfuls

They fell in scores along the way

It wasn't over in a few weeks

Took ten long years instead

Sixty thousand girls and boys

Were left behind or dead

They didn't get the hero's due

No laurels round their brow

Our nation turned its face away

They are still owed even now

No ticker tape parades in town

Just some statues and a wall

God bless those folks from yesterday

They're my heroes after all.
William Carrington

A Name on a Wall

Do you know who I am?

You should for I am part of you

My spirit is forever entwined with yours

And my name is written on a wall.

Do you know me yet?

I once lived and breathed as you

I loved — and someone loved me

And now my name is written on a wall.

But that wall is not all there is of me

For I am a part of all that you are

And you carry me with you

Unseen — as I travel in the wind

My love for our land has taken me many places

Most with names I'd never heard

And I left a part of me at each place

And I left a part of you there too

I was at Alamance and Anzio

I fell at Gettysburg and bled on both sides

at The Little Bighorn

I slept in French mud Korean snow and sand near Baghdad

And my life ended in Asia leaving my name —

written on a wall

Perhaps you failed to notice as I passed by you

Sometimes I was a man and sometimes a woman

My face in shades of white, red, black, and yellow

And wearing uniforms of homespun, blue, gray,

buckskin, and olive

Do you know me now?

I was called to pay with my life

A heavy tax to bear — but freedom is costly

And only you can make it worth the price

You must make my sacrifice have value

For I am a part of you and your freedom

I am your past, your present, and your future

I am not just monuments or numbers in a history book

And I am not — Just A Name On A Wall.

"Rolling Thunder Salute" R. Epstein

About The Memorial Day Writers' Project (MDWP)

Mission Statement

We are Veterans and we are writers, musicians, and artists. We are a collective of friends - some veterans, some not - all of whom were formed or affected by the crucible of war. We gather to share our creative talents through public readings, performances, and other endeavors.

The Memorial Day Writers' Project (MDWP) is non-profit, non-political, and has no affiliation with any religious group or movement. Our purpose is to create, educate, share and inform ourselves and those who gather with us. We are warriors and fellow travelers of a certain kind: we have no enemy except tyranny; we abhor it in any guise and seek to free what it enslaves and heal what it despoils. Our weapons are our hearts and our minds.

The goals of The Memorial Day Writers' Project are:

1) To continue to memorialize and remember those men and women who sacrificed themselves in Wars - not only the Vietnam War but in all Wars, worldwide.

2) To deliver a personal and unromanticized message about War and its aftermath.

3) To provide public educational forums and performance venues for those who have yet to be heard, as well as for those who wish to hear.

4) To participate in public educational forums and performance venues sponsored by others and with others who respect our right of free expression as we respect theirs.

5) To promote and foster the creative and educational process among the collective group and among those who have been touched by or in contact with the MDWP.

6) To offer a positive and conciliatory legacy in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to our generation and to the generations that follow.

Contact Information

For more information see our website at www.memorialdaywritersproject.com or contact MMCdon5808@aol.com or dick_epstein@hotmail.com.

WEBSITE: http://www.memorialdaywritersproject.com/

http://www.milspeak.org

About Sied Books

MilSpeak Foundation's Sied Books program - <http://www.milspeak.org/milspeak/Sied_Books.html> \- is a free book giveaway to deployed military members, wounded warriors, disabled veterans and their families, and is sponsored by MilSpeak Foundation in honor of F.P. Siedentopf, MGySgt USMC, Ret., a Vietnam Veteran (Monkey Mountain), a MilSpeak writer, a co-founder of MilSpeak Memo, and a truly dedicated Marine. Deployed units or individuals from any service, wounded warriors, disabled veterans, and their family members can request free coupon codes for any book published by MilSpeak Books by sending a coupon request email to: siedbooks@milspeak.org

Downloading MilSpeak Books titles using the coupon codes requires initiating a Smashwords.com membership. This is free. Setting up a Smashowords.com membership requires creating and entering a username and password. Since 2009 when the program began, Sied Books has gifted more than 2400 downloads of electronic books written by MilSpeak Writers and published by MilSpeak Books.

"Above decks it was too windy to play cards and too cramped to exercise, so our major amusements were singing with an acoustic guitar, telling sea stories (lies and bigger lies), and reading if you could find a book. We loved paperback books because they could be read simultaneously by three or four people. Simply tear the book down its spine at a break between chapters and you ended up with three or four sections. To start, the original owner would read the first section and pass it on. While he's reading the second section someone else is reading the first. Finish those and pass them on and now you have three people reading the same book. We were always very critical of someone who lost a section of the book, although the loss of a page or two was both inevitable and accepted."

\--F.P. Siedentopf "Let Me Take You on a Sea Cruise"

Guarding St. Peter's Gate since Memorial Day 2009

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