A Vietnam War Veteran’s Poem II
A Vietnam War Veteran’s Poem II
intro by the editor, poem by Mark Fleming
President Obama recently announced a 65 million dollar, 13 year long “commemoration” of the American war in Vietnam. In announcing this program, he said “As we observe the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, we reflect with solemn reverence upon the valor of a generation that served with honor“. Many veterans and peace activists think that the effort is being undertaken “to whitewash what really happened and to glorify the Vietnam War as a noble effort.” The purpose of the government’s “commemoration” campaign is to make it easier for the U.S. government to fight future wars of aggression. There are too many people still alive who remember the Vietnam war and what it did to a generation. Let them speak.
The Olympia Fellowship of Reconciliation’s May 2016 TV program counters the government effort with truthful information that the Pentagon does not want you to know. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0bvHWQNWwQ&feature=youtu.be
The two guests on the Olympia TV program were combat veterans in Vietnam. Like so many others, as young men, they were ordered to go to Vietnam where they were put into a “kill or be killed” situation and then praised when they did kill. We now understand that when a country does this to its young men it is a “moral injury” and causes post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. Below is a poem written by one of the guests, Mark Fleming
COMRADE
I really never knew him but he has been my companion for many years.
Someone said he was a jerk. I can’t say.
All I know is that the brief time we were together left a lasting impression.
You see, I watched him die.
His death was not dramatic or heroic. Just dumb.
An accident in a war filled with many accidents.
The difference was that I saw it happen.
I watched him die.
He fell out of a helicopter that was his ticket to safety.
A medical evacuation for a minor cut,
Hardly even a wound,
A convenient excuse to get out of the jungle.
But nobody expected him to die.
We watched him rising toward the chopper
Envying his good fortune, each of us
Wishing that we were ascending in his place.
The chopper’s big rotors slapped the air
As it hovered above the mountain side.
Its turbines screaming,
Waiting to carry him back to safety.
I saw the medic lean out of the door,
Reaching to pull him in.
I saw him put his feet on the skids.
And I saw him fall away from the chopper.
He fell abruptly, violently.
No slow motion effect. No eternity to reach the ground.
Just a rapid free fall and a bone crunching thud.
Mere seconds ended his life at 19.
We wrapped him in a poncho
And hooked him to the cable again.
This time he made it,
Boots pointing upward as they disappeared into the open door.
But this time was too late.
The chopper carried away a corpse,
Leaving us to our thoughts, black and evil.
No one wanted to trade places with him now.