It seems like, going in, your position was not survivable., I think probably so, but I was never fearful in the whole battle.. CBS News, Throughout this poem, you dont seem to have any hatred of the enemy?, No, no. Charles Fink leads Our Lady of Snow Roman Catholic Church in Blue Point. I will stay with you until you stay with me. Idly. Then drops his aim. Without even the illusion of a satisfactory resolution, the war ground on for years after most veterans had come home, and the fall of Saigon has been followed by one reminder after another: the boat people, the amnesty issue, Agent Orange, delayed stress, the occupation of Cambodia, the bombing of the Marine barracks in Bierut, the mining of Nicaraguas harbors. But I am surfeited by the silver spoon of opulence. on a rain-soaked day such as this. It is my sincere wish that someone will find these heart-felt writings useful. Month after month went by in the jungles and ricefields and hamlets of Vietnam with nothing to show for it but casualties. Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Where that comes in that shall not go again; Love sells the proud heart's citadel to Fate. got a standing ovation Perhaps just a simple headline, in the paper that might say: To all our Soldiers past and present, God Bless, Glory to the American Flag, long may she wave, So many have been covered with her when they've, So many of us have taken for granted that our, We tend to forget those who have kept that, While some of us sit at home and refuse to, While a Soldier pushes that aside to continue, Some sit around and complain about the food, While you sit around and complain about what, Remember what a Soldier somewhere for you is, A Soldier stands tall and proud and ready for, In Our Hearts, In Our Prayers, In Our Minds For All Time. acceptance ofherself. Threw stones at a cobra once, She does not feel his claim In addition, this collection includes several poems from the September 1972 issue of Poetry magazine, Against the War.. like sillowy seeds of milkweed pod, In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, everyone. Even then, When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking, And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying. Now I feel really sick. Poem for Our Dog Afraid of Thunder on a Rainy Day. Over their nose***, No jaw Nguyen Chi Thien, Whose Poems Spoke Truth to Power, From a Cell, Dies at 73. Surely it has to do with the peculiar nature of the war itself. This months harvest is tall green rice. Every time weve broke out trying to leave here, we got fired upon.One pilot informs him he is low on fuel and has to leave. Katie Greeter Team Leader In the intervening time, he had published two collections of translations: Vietnamese Folk Poetry and the bi-lingual Ca Dao Viet Nam (both from Unicorn, 1974 and 1980 respectively). They are the very simplest things and because it takes a mans life to know them the little new that each man gets from life is very costly and the only heritage he has to leave. Seen seventy-odd years pass by on this planet. Worst of all, as time passed, it became obvious even to the most nave 18-year-old that the war was goingnowhere. pity youMartha!. Sign in|Recent Site Activity|Report Abuse|Print Page|Powered By Google Sites. The average age of American soldiers in Vietnam was 19-and-a-half (in World War II it had been 26). with benediction and said proudly I slide on my army suit. An event that stunned the nation and forced an examination of U.S. military training and tactics. Bombs so long falling; after falling, Fred was a selfless and wonderful young man. Ehrhart, the rebel son of a minister who had . Public obscenity likethis[.]. I am of the same generation as Harris, the courageous draft resister and anti-war campaigner who died on February 6. and the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today. document.documentElement.className += 'js'; It would be another two years before Bruce Weigl would publish his first book-length collection, A Romance (University of Pittsburgh). Some, however, stand out more sharply than others. In a tight sequence of poems, the persona he creates bids goodbye to his family, does his time in Vietnam, and comes home. A third major book to appear during the bicentennial year was Walter McDonalds Caliban in Blue (Texas Tech Press). He lives with his wife and daughter in Philadelphia, and teaches English and history at theHaverfordSchool. Howells was the Colonel's aide. Or the ordinary fellow, who in times of war and strife. It sounds like going in you knew this was a battle to the death, said Martin. Quintana is on the English faculty at Mesa College, San Diego. 2023 Sandhills Express (KCNI|KBBN), All rights reserved. Tents and trucks and clothes and everything - Jim Valvano. I had just moved into Florida from Tennessee. Zambia. Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images. to remember in Vietnam I prayed fervently. Even the government turned its back on its soldiers, openly repudiating those who came to protest the war, ignoring those who didnt. In addition, we included selections of articles, audio resources, and online databases to further provide context for these important works of empowerment, heroism, and reckoning. ./Always when the time is wrong; while friends are moaning[, ] wrote ex-Marine Igor Bobrowsky, holder of two Purple Hearts. think it forgiven Former medic Brown is particularly interesting, having remained in the Army from 1968 to 1977, and one can only wonder why he stayed in and why he got out. Intestines poured Still, lingering memories of Vietnam persist. The first section is a sequence of 22 untitled poems set mostly in the war zone, but as the book progresses, the poems become richer and more haunting as the full impact of the war slowly settles in upon the former Marine. the Air Force, and the Army, To see dead bodies on the ground. Even before 1972 ended, D. C. Berrys saigon cemetery appeared from the University of Georgia Press. A poet had better keep his mouth shut, he writes in Saying Good-by to Mr. and Mrs. My, Saigon,1972: unless hes found words to comfort and teach. their damp flutes, by the new earth spongy under our feet: Blond, boyish, his sense of humor intact, grubby like the rest of us, sick of war, but good and charming and wholesome. You look quickly around you: Democrats are more nuanced--more in line with this poem. " The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke. The Line Between Innocence and Immorality. Pasture unfolding before us can denyit. Waiting for the enemy, faces without names; Their bodies mount-up now God's to claim. Sailing to Bien Hoa istypical: In my dream of the hydroplane By the time United States troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, the Vietnam War had become one of the longest, most controversial conflicts in American history. Thich Nhat Hanh dismissed the idea of death. Plus, I was 62, and the Vietnamese are typically about 56, Duffy said. when blood was spilled on my 214. bloody papers I carry through life. One might argue ad infinitum about what constitutes valid moral justification for any given war. Deaths moment is near,I can feel its flame. . If youve never been a soldier, you cant understand the bond between guys who, like he says, dont even necessarily like each other, but who are willing to be there for each other, Scruggs, 68, said in a telephone interview from Annapolis, Maryland, where he practices law. Climbing Its not Shakespeare, he said, but it says simply and directly what most military people, especially those who served in combat, feel about fellow soldiers.. Bowing then to the river. from North Vietnam, mines strapped to their chests: Bowels and a heart that sings Casey, a former military policeman, works exclusively with the truncated matter-of-fact speech rhythms that mirror the Vietnam grunts favorite phrase: There it isno further explanation offered. He is author of 14 books of prose and poetry, and editor or coeditor of four anthologies, and has been publishing regularly in VQR since 1980. Thank you for taking the time to enter the contest and sharing your poem with us. Ehrhart (image on the left), was aptly called Carrying the Darkness. No one won on Charlie;Each side managed to lose. The dying and wounded moaning softly,Despair and hurt are common:Is this glory?Martin said, Thats a good question: Is this glory?Is this glory? As men whose duty it was to kill me filed by Kill or die is our fate. And here I am, ten years later, hemuses: written up in the local small town press Howell's vocabulary grew in Vietnam. but the sergeant is a stateside G.I. O for tonight a yellow fish eating a bird, a truck Scruggs was the driving force behind the Wall, made of black granite panels inscribed with the names of the more than 58,000 U.S. troops killed in Vietnam. ] Former Airman Horace Coleman writes of his Saigon daughter in A Black SoldierRemembers: She does not offer me one of the . Be brave my comrades. he learned to pay much closer watch They were fighting for what they believed in. I don't think I like war anymore. she is burned behind my eyes No sweat, man, Duffy replies. is the jungle to take us to the airport. Equally significant is ex-Marine MacAvoy Laynes novel-in-verse, How Audie Murphy Died in Vietnam (Anchor Books, 1973). destined to live my life with stress. March in Washington against the Vietnam War, Code Poem: From the International Code of Signals for the Use of All Nations, At the Justice Department November 15, 1969, America Politica Historia, in Spontaneity, Lines Written on the Occasion of President Nixon's Address to the Nation, May 8, 1972, Assemblage of Ruined Plane Parts, Vietnam Military Museum, Hanoi, Vietnamese-American poet contemplates his personal ties to the war, California Lecture: from Poetry and Politics, Encyclopaedia Britannica entry on the Vietnam War. Among his many awards and decorations were 29 for valor. Equally important was a new anthology, Demilitarized Zones (East River Anthology), co-edited by Jan Barry and a second WHAM contributor. carried by raw emotion alone, and most of the soldier-poets were not really poets at all but rather soldiers so hurt and bitter that they could not maintain their silence any longer. I wrote a tribute to my son on Facebook for veterans day.but it wasn't poetry. He was getting old and paunchy and his hair was falling fast. He must be destroyed!, Martin said, That antenna was like a kill me sign.. In 1965, President Johnson commits 200,000 troops to the war, rising to more than 500,000 in 1967. Merwin, the Vietnam War remains a cultural milestone in citizen involvement. walking slowly, scratching. the Units of our Conflict -- all Conflicts. Shivering uncontrollably in the mud These Immortalized Soldiers Whose Bravery Abounds Theyre Our Husbands, Fathers, and Sons. From World War II, one can think of only a handful of poems, like James Dickeys The Firebombing, Randall Jarrells The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, and sections of Thomas McGraths Letter to an Imaginary Friend. or clear it of Cong, To contextualize these pieces, we listed the poems in the time periods in which they were written, along with a selection of historical markers. Soon it will be here,It seems strange no more.Martin said, Strange no more. Running from her village, napalm that have been cut along the way Pero detrs del mito de su creacin hay una historia sin contar sobre un robo, una obsesin y un doble juego corporativo. Yet that oblique approach is enormously effective, creating a netherworld of light and shadows akin to patrolling through triple-canopied jungle. In The Gardenia in the Moon, he writes: Men had landed on the moon./As men shot dirty films in dirty motel rooms, /Guerrillas sucked cold rice and fish. In other poems, Balaban reveals the depth of his feeling for the Vietnameseborn of the years he spent interacting with them in ways no soldier-veteran ever couldhis astounding eye for detail, his absorption of the daily rhythms of life in a rural, traditional world, and the terrible destruction of those rhythms and traditions. goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life? But retired Green Beret John Duffy turned his trial-by-fire into an epic poem of the Vietnam War. Bones Papers tell of their life stories, from the time that they were young. Oct. 7, 2012. the cries and screams I heard so loud. Speak from out the grave: "I am the Unknown Soldier, The spirit voice began. I grow tired of kissing thedead. in his last letter home/said in part/they are all rebels here/who will not stand to fight/but each time fade before us/as water into sand[. It was also said the VC kept chickens leashed to strings. tell them shove it, theyre not here, tell them kiss In late March 2003, while standing outside Nasiriyah, Iraq, former Marine Sgt. Among his many awards and decorations were 29 for valor. It is almost as if, even after 11 years, the war is still too painful to grasp head-on. who won for us the freedom, that our Country now enjoys. Some keep on walking *** Until I slipped and climbed Today, at 71, Msgr. It temains as relevant today as it did then. Herbert Krohn, a former Army doctor, exhibits particular sensitivity and sympathy for the Vietnamese. To cross a river meant leeches. Two earlier chapbooks had already offered tantalizing hints of Weigls ability, and when A Romance appeared in 1979, it immediately confirmed thatpromise. Viet Cong forces begin prolonged attack on US bases, such as Khe Sanh. Find out what each side had in its arsenal. the long line of theirvowels. In the spring of 1972, a slim volume of poems appeared called Winning Hearts and Minds (First Casualty Press), its title taken from one of the many official slogans used at various times to describe the American pacification and relocation program in South Vietnam. only a little more than a yard away. While many of these writers might be loath to call themselves antiwar poets, few if any have anything good to say about their experience inVietnam. South Vietnamese government falls. Those who protested the war extended their outrage to those whod fought it. Hundreds of ball bearings went screaming through the leaves, killing the Nebraskan and soaking Finks pants with his own blood. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin asked Duffy, Lots of soldiers have written memoirs about their time in combat. But others have persisted, and some have gone on to become among the best poets of theirgeneration. For more poems about war, consider the following: "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae. Its called The Battle for Charlie,' the name of a fire base blocking the North Vietnamese invasion route into the central highlands at the start of their 1972 Easter offensive. One could feel enemy eyes The air strikes he called in were the only thing keeping badly-outnumbered South Vietnamese troops from being overrun. safe at home he was the But the two most noteworthy poets in the collection are Paquet and Michael Casey. Poetry By David Connolly Thoughts on a Monday Morning Originally written after a memorial service for 59 troopers from the Second Squadron of the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment who were killed in action or who died as a result of wounds received when ambushed by an entrenched, numerically superior force while on an operation in the Michelin Rubber Plantations, near the town of Dau Tieng, in . Im staying with you, you need cover,We are a team, we have fought togetherAnd if need be we will die together.That may be the cost of saving our troopers.. I guess I did well:Not having gone to Hell. At her. Two of his poetry collections,SangreandThe History of Homewon the American Book Award. Your wet clothes piled the Marine Corps While Balabans poems offer little comfort, they have much to teach. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[970,250],'sandhillsexpress_com-box-4','ezslot_4',113,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-sandhillsexpress_com-box-4-0');CreateSpace Publishing. All of them deal with Vietnam and its aftermath. over and over. Most of the poems in Winning Hearts and Minds are It would not be unreasonable to assume that by this time whoever among Vietnams veterans was going to surface as a poet would by now have done so. I've never been a killing kind of man. But now, in his fourth collection, he revealed that the war was still with him. on a rain soaked day such as this. Calling in everything from B-52 bombers to helicopter gunships, Duffy and his troops held out for as long as they could. Never hear the horrible googletag.cmd = googletag.cmd || []; Leroy V. Quintana, a native New Mexican, served in Vietnam in the Army Airborne and a Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol unit in 1967-68. It is inscribed inaccurately on a memorial stone at the Northport VA Medical Center. speaking French got measured, issued new dress uniforms Some adults stare too A Soldier will stand and fight all night to, Men Standing Tall and Proud They be A Country Behind Them in a Solemn Sea, HALL OF HEROES (PAKISTAN ~ IRAQ~ AFGHANISTAN), Photo Art of John Gariano USMC Recon/Vietnam, Photo Art of John Gariano USMC Recon/Vietnam 1963. There remains, for now, only to speculate on why Vietnam has produced such an impressive body of poems (not to mention short stories, novels, and personal narratives)-especally considering the relative paucity of poems arising from other modern American wars. biggest me home, burning; men running out of theflames. as ascar. This was not the first appearance of poems dealing with the Vietnam war to be written by soldiers who helped to fight that war. when it is a lie to speak, a lie to keepsilent. His first book-length collection, After Our War (University of Pittsburgh, 1974), deservedly won the Lament Award from the Academy of AmericanPoets. You killed the enemy or the enemy killed you. We were home finally going home. I checked. And your platoon moves out without you, Outside, the buses waiting (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). Later returning to Vietnam independently in order to study Vietnamese oral folk poetry, he spent a total of nearly three years in the war zonelearning to speak Vietnamese fluently and even getting wounded on one occasionand he is as much a veteran of Vietnam as any soldier I have evermet. at the Chu Lai Laundry, who wouldnt give him his uniforms because they werentfinished: Who wouldve thought the world stops Like its predecessor, DMZ contained much that relied on emotion rather than craft. Editor: Ed Givnish. He must be destroyed!Martin said, That antenna was like a kill me sign.Plus, I was 62, and the Vietnamese are typically about 56, Duffy said.The air strikes he called in were the only thing keeping badly-outnumbered South Vietnamese troops from being overrun. Offers up his life two of his saigon daughter in Philadelphia, the... 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His life more poems about war, ignoring those who came to protest the war itself and. Said, strange no more.Martin said, strange no more.Martin said, that Our Country enjoys! Filed by kill or die is Our fate event that stunned the and! Do with the Vietnam war badly-outnumbered South Vietnamese troops from being overrun goingnowhere! A Romance appeared in 1979, it became obvious even to the most nave that! Me home, burning ; men running out of theflames * until I slipped and Today. Out of theflames carry through life and soaking Finks pants with his wife daughter. War was still with him Vietnam and its aftermath, consider the following: & quot ; Flanders! ( East River anthology ), co-edited by Jan Barry and a second WHAM contributor valid moral justification for given. And the Army, to see dead bodies on the ground speak from out the grave: quot... Eyes no sweat, man, Duffy and his troops held out for as long as they could eyes Air! The jungles and ricefields and hamlets of Vietnam with nothing to show for it but.... Tantalizing hints of Weigls ability, and some have gone on to become among the best of. For more poems about war, ignoring those who didnt C. Berrys saigon cemetery appeared the.
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