A Vietnam War Veteran’s Poem
A Vietnam War Veteran’s Poem
intro by the editor, poem by Larry Kerschner
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.” http://www.olympiafor.org/tv_programs.htm 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, Larry Kerschner.
driving I remember
to note
sites which would be good for an ambush
walking I watch the ground for
dirt which may have been disturbed
in the laying of mines
nearly forty years later
I still expect the bullet
to hit that spot
just below my left scapula
that always itches
like a target
nearly forty years later
I remember when we were boy warriors
thrown together far from home
(gun smoke thick as fog
hot brass litter
the lamb-like smell of napalm
burnt indigenous personnel
pile of bodies
slowly moving limbs in rigor
green thick jungle vines
sticky red clay mud in monsoon season)
if he wasn’t part of that
piece of me that couldn’t come home
maybe I could
remember my friend’s face
nearly forty years later