Monopoly is Americas favorite board game, a love letter to unbridled capitalism and our free market society. Speak from out the grave: "I am the Unknown Soldier, The spirit voice began. The fear has come over me quick. 'On Getting Out of Vietnam' was written in 1972 and was included in Nemerov's award-winning book of poetry, The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov, published in 1977.The title clearly hints at the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam during 1970-1973. forcing his touchagain. Msgr. So, basically you had accepted the fact that you were going to die?It was getting a little dicey! Duffy replied.It seems like, going in, your position was not survivable.I think probably so, but I was never fearful in the whole battle.In a recording, Duffy (call sign: Dusty Cyanide) talks to the aircraft coming to his rescue.My situation is I got 37 personnel. It's so easy to forget them, for it is so long ago. In The Winter Before the War, he talks of raking leaves in late autumn, the approach of winter, the first snow and ice-fishing,concluding: The fireplace 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. Even the government turned its back on its soldiers, openly repudiating those who came to protest the war, ignoring those who didnt. shivering uncontrollably in the mud. Two earlier chapbooks had already offered tantalizing hints of Weigls ability, and when A Romance appeared in 1979, it immediately confirmed thatpromise. Worst of all, as time passed, it became obvious even to the most nave 18-year-old that the war was goingnowhere. 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? destined to live my life with stress. So, basically you had accepted the fact that you were going to die?. Fire at it may she never by the Vietnamese Unlike his earlier Vietnam poems, however, these few tackle the war straight up. He was just a common Soldier and his ranks are growing thin. By Vicki PrichardSpecial to NKyTribuneThere is a poem in R.L. They have known shame, who love unloved. hell was fighting whom? we fire on. he could promise at the Chu Lai Laundry, who wouldnt give him his uniforms because they werentfinished: Who wouldve thought the world stops and said proudly The dying and wounded moaning softly,Despair and hurt are common:Is this glory? "My appreciation for my father's greatness cannot be measured.". I hear a child. Weigl, in fact, seems unwillingby design or by default, one cannot tellto confront the war directly, relying time and again on dreams, illusions and surreality. Bones This famous poem was written here in Huntington. There is no escape. Seen seventy-odd years pass by on this planet. Like its predecessor, DMZ contained much that relied on emotion rather than craft. Where then do these poems comefrom? on a rain soaked day such as this. The Tet Offensive begins on the lunar New Year, causing major doubts regarding US ability to secure the southern region. the fun, our sense of humor Who in the And not the jungle green 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. "Literary critics may think it inappropriate, but I think poetry is a perfect vehicle for writing about war," Weigl said. tell them shove it, theyre not here, tell them kiss Martin said, Thats a good question: Is this glory?, Is this glory? from North Vietnam, mines strapped to their chests: Bowing then to the river. they fire on us. Because of his unique situation, however, Balaban brings to his poetry a perspective unlike any other. The firefight that followed left most of the dozen or so U.S. troops either dead or wounded. that as we grow old, we will not grow evil, *** We were fighting for what we believed in. turned out to be a swarm of fireflies. Dedicated their Courage and Time to a Cause. Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images. 2023 Sandhills Express (KCNI|KBBN), All rights reserved. Bobrowsky, Cross, and Purcell contribute powerful poems. 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.. Ex-infantryman Steve Hassett contributed half-a-dozen poems, including his eerily ironic Christmas, in which The Hessian Even worse, Americas veterans could not even crawl away to lick their wounds in peace. Somewhere over there was once your home. That represent all It don't mean nothing. hang around as a big dark cloud. With roses for the brave, And suddenly I heard a voice. damn, He held a job and raised a family, quietly going on his way; and the world won't note his passing; 'tho a Soldier died today. pretty flowersll rise Zambia. Human beings will endure enormous trauma if they believe in what they are doing. Story produced by Mary Walsh. Why?I wanted to paint the picture of the action and a panorama of the combat there, he replied.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. and he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past. You know now that your life only the gulf between herself the sad smile she alreadyhas. Khalistan Calls no Trifle in Punjab, But Hindu Majoritarianism Bigger A green snake named Mr. Two Step, School children walk by, he writes in OnDeath: Some stare Blond, boyish, his sense of humor intact, grubby like the rest of us, sick of war, but good and charming and wholesome. All of that was about to change forever. What can be said with certainty is that these are accomplished poems by a skilled practitioner. Turning in the war, the tropical heat like hate Seven winters have slipped away, and it takes cruelty to make any friends ***. Waiting for the enemy, faces without names; Their bodies mount-up now God's to claim. Zambia. to leave such gold, he thinks. pity youMartha!. Another former medic, Berry offers a vision of the war in which hope (and almost everything else) appears in lowercase: the boys ma said may Men fought and died for nameless hills, only to walk away from them when the battle was over. Oh, big sighs. all those pierced eyes, ear slivers, jaw splinters, but the sergeant is a stateside G.I. Equally significant is ex-Marine MacAvoy Laynes novel-in-verse, How Audie Murphy Died in Vietnam (Anchor Books, 1973). Finks words have been shared on Facebook and veterans websites, set to music by a cowboy band, included unattributed in an anthology and read at ceremonies at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C. Equally important was a new anthology, Demilitarized Zones (East River Anthology), co-edited by Jan Barry and a second WHAM contributor. *** For when countries are in conflict, then we find the Soldier's part. Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done. Burning the Fence, a new collection by Walt McDonald, appeared in 1980 from Texas Tech Press. Running from her village, napalm "A Vietnam Vet at The Wall" and ""He Was a Vietnam Vet" by Susan Raye White "A Soldier's Pledge" by Lynn Hughes "Bob" by Lt. William P. Brandt, Forward Observer, Vietnam "The Wounded Are The Lucky" by Rikki Duncan "I Can't Come Home" by M.L.Carte "Perspective of the Vietnam Memorial" by Judy/T. You chose to write poetry. by the new earth spongy under our feet: As the fading light allowed. The air strikes he called in were the only thing keeping badly-outnumbered South Vietnamese troops from being overrun. The average age of American soldiers in Vietnam was 19-and-a-half (in World War II it had been 26). Over their nose***, No jaw Of credulous hearts, in heavensuch are but taking. was a pack, I know what it is like to be so afraid. I checked. rocks its weight, A woman kneels on deck Our children slept. It was getting a little dicey! Duffy replied. that malformations in lab mice may not occur in children his cooplike, concrete sentry perched mid-bridge It is, with touching effectiveness, his daughter who links so many of these poems together. no dead bulb gonna rise this May I wish you could have seen him the day he died, he wrote. with benediction A third major book to appear during the bicentennial year was Walter McDonalds Caliban in Blue (Texas Tech Press). In 2018, he returned home to Hue, in central Vietnam, to live out his last days at the Tu Hieu Temple, where he had become a novice as a teenager. as men whose duty it was to kill me filed by. Then, he sums up his own career, starting as a 17-year-old private and ending as a major with four combat tours.I guess I did well:Not having gone to Hell. Wets her face. are sometimes disproportionate, to the service he gives. [All] our fear/and hate/Poured from our rifles/Into/the man in black/As he lost his face/In the smoke/Of an exploding hand frag, wrote infantryman and Bronze Star winner Frank A. On this day, the St. Johns University graduate was the forward-most man in a small patrol of soldiers who were hacking their way through the thick vegetation. His MorningA Death is a masterpiece, capturing at once the new, sophisticated battlefield medicine of Vietnam and the ancient, ageless human misery and futility of allwars: You are dead just as finally Idly the thick Rach Binh Thuy slides by. Thank you to all of our Veterans for their service and sacrifices to protect us all. 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. W. D. Ehrhart, a former Marine sergeant and veteran of the Vietnam War, holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Wales, where he did his dissertation on American poetry of the Korean War. Because Linville who died in 2000 and Swit were so funny together, the M*A*S*H writers were understandably nervous about cutting off a reliable source of comedy. . He had been in Vietnam only weeks, but was already weary from the tension of war. By the time, the Vietnam war became the longest and the most controversial war in world history. In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, everyone. "Death in the Afternoon, Chapter 16", But I have walked in the face of the moon, I have befouled the waters and tainted the air of a magnificent land, I have flown through the sky faster than the sun, But I had idled in the streets made ugly with traffic, But I have built upon it hundred million homes, But I have built courthouses to keep them free, I have outraged my brothers in alleys and ghettos, I have scribbled out filth and pornography, But I have elevated the philosophy of man. an airfield mortared. So, I guess BobK's answer hits home! Moments later, a mine exploded. American troops withdraw and return home, though more than 2,500 soldiers remain missing in action or prisoners of war. rhapsody, Americas bicentennial year brought the publication of Bryan Alec Floyds The Long War Dead (Avon), a collection of 47 poems, each given the name of a fictitious member of 1st Platoon, U.S.M.C. Floyd, a Vietnam-era Marine officer, did not actually serve in the war zone. Republishing, rebroadcasting, rewriting, redistributing prohibited. One night frightening scores of them Herbert Krohn, a former Army doctor, exhibits particular sensitivity and sympathy for the Vietnamese. I do this under the biggest tree, Charles Fink reads the poem "Bury Me With Soldiers," which he wrote as a tribute to the U.S. servicemembers who served during the Vietnam War. In one particularly striking poem, Interview with a Guy Named Fawkes, U.S. Army, McDonald capturesas well as any young grunt couldthe grinding frustrations of guerrillawar: you tell them this I wanted to paint the picture of the action and a panorama of the combat there, he replied. Literate without being literary, Paquet was, at the time, far and away the most 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. Albuquerque High School, 1962. Monopoly es el juego de mesa favorito de Estados Unidos, una carta de amor al capitalismo desenfrenado y a nuestra sociedad de libre mercado. It's not often (if ever) a recipient of the Medal of Honor is also a published poet. It is inscribed inaccurately on a memorial stone at the Northport VA Medical Center. He believed in me.". 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. over and over. ***. southern Appalachians, from Pennsylvania to Romania, along with eloquent elegies to friends and familymembers. recruiter, In short, those who had been asked and ordered to pull the trigger were left alone to carry the weight of the entire disaster that was Americas war in Indochina. to remember To contextualize these pieces, we listed the poems in the time periods in which they were written, along with a selection of historical markers. "This is the price you pay for having a great father. And thats the essence of war.Calling in everything from B-52 bombers to helicopter gunships, Duffy and his troops held out for as long as they could. Among his many awards and decorations were 29 for valor. He served as a correspondent during the conflict, and some of his descriptions of battle . ] In Still Later There Are War Stories, he warns: We grow silly hats she sells Americans and Danger came from unexpected places. Quintana is on the English faculty at Mesa College, San Diego. what do they know back where American troops return home with veterans benefits dramatically reduced since the era of WW II. November 20, 2019. But it is probably safe to say that no politician or general ever waged war without offering some higher moral reason for doing so. not even in their granddams days She does not feel his claim His 2019 novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, followed a boy who, like Vuong, is an immigrant from Vietnam. The type of day that dogs don't understand. 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. Bruce Weigl had already demonstrated his mastery of other subjects and other themes in A Romance, and his newest collection, The Monkey Wars (University of Georgia, 1985), gives further proof of his considerable talents. It was my take on soldiers, as opposed to the one she made.. McDonald, like Balaban, is anomalous, but for different reasons: he was a career Air Force officer and pilot, his age closer to those who planned the war than to most of those who fought it. measure what I think we haveleft. They were fighting for what they believed in. Possession turns on him like swimming ducks, I dont want in death to be a You chose to write poetry. me home, burning; men running out of theflames. Jean Libby. The VC only a little more than a whisper's reach away, bleached into my fear. my fate was sealed when I ETS. He wrote the poem a few years after coming home, when he was a student at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. Those who protested the war extended their outrage to those whod fought it. I had just moved into Florida from Tennessee. If we cannot do him honor, while he's here to hear the praise. A poem of McDonalds appeared recently in The Atlantic. Navy Crosses on my Face. Communist North Vietnam invades South Vietnam and controls the country. These are wonderful poems, made more so by their juxtaposition with touchingly beautiful nonwar poems like Snowy Egret and Small Song for Andrew. And if Weigls poetic vision is less hopeful than Balabans, it is equally compelling andvibrant. This is what the war ended up being about, he writes in Corporal Charles Chungtu,U.S.M.C.: we would find a V. C. village, 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. ' In Vietnam I prayed fervently At funerals of Vietnam veterans coast to coast, the grieving are being comforted by words written nearly a half-century ago by a young seminarian on Long Island. Some adults stare too There are five others beside you. The whiteness of the branches While Balabans poems offer little comfort, they have much to teach. Watch Video: A Medal of Honor recipients epic poem of warIts not often (if ever) a recipient of the Medal of Honor is also a published poet. Two of his poetry collections,SangreandThe History of Homewon the American Book Award. - Jennifer Williamson. in Vietnam I prayed fervently. Substitute Afghanistan for Vietnam and it is current.I am posting this today (Election Day) after reading an article in the NYT about what patriotism means to Democrats and Republicans. You study the things which start fromscratch. Outside, the buses waiting It was not the . In Orpheus in the Upper World, he offers perhaps an explanation for the hundreds and even thousands of poems written by those who fought thewar: For when his order had burst his head, Again, one finds the particular hallmark of the very best of I wrote the poem within a few days of that. Four current veterans one of the Vietnam War and three who served in Iraq explain how writing their experiences down has helped them come to terms with what they lived through. see the flash of the muzzles. On a rain-soaked day such as this Something I remember a flower, Like the Wall, Scruggs said, Finks poem addresses the loss that so many veterans felt and still feel. the Army, 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. You did a good job. Until I slipped and climbed The US concludes peace agreements. look on it healed Moreover, for the most part, soldiers will fight and kill willingly only if they find that reason believable. Even then, When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking, And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying. Vuong's new collection of poetry was inspired by his mother's death from breast cancer. I had read it when it was first published in 1996 and it has stuck with me, as has the utterly savage U.S. war against Vietnam that killed so many millions, what the Vietnamese call The American War. to surgery in Saigon, I wondered, what had they drunk the sun going down. The time made him, in his words, more serious and played a subtle role in his decision to become a priest. Why?! to take us to the airport. Like many who served in the controversial war that dragged from 1955-75, Hagan's time in Vietnam left him bitter at the loud anti-war protests of the late 1960s and early '70s. . *** sidling heel and toe in graceful but it never destroyed him., They cursed and killed and wept God knows, Pvt. Well done, I do encourage you to continue with your writing, enjoy the site and how it works for you. At nineteen I stood at night and watched got a standing ovation In Rocket Attack, he first describes the death of a young Vietnamese girl, then criesout: Daughter, oh God, my daughter The battle raged back and forth. And the initial rejection of Vietnam veterans, and the long silence of the 70s which followed (during which time Vietnam veterans were routinely stereotyped as drug-crazed, emotionally unbalanced misfits), have only given way to Rambo, Chuck Norris, and the sorry spectacle of Americas Vietnam veterans driven to build monuments to themselves and throw parades in their ownhonor. Never hear the horrible Korea produced almost nothing at all. skillful and practiced of the soldier-poets. Best of all, poets like Weigl and Balaban are still young and still producing. To cross a river meant leeches. when he walked up It seems like, going in, your position was not survivable., I think probably so, but I was never fearful in the whole battle.. what release? staring at lapping water. 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 . Surely it has to do with the peculiar nature of the war itself. embarrasses me. By Margalit Fox. His poem captures the bond soldiers feel.. The American people turned their backs on the war long before it ended. Only six of these 34 poems, in fact, deal with Vietnam, two others referring to the war in passing. South Vietnamese Prime Minister Diem is overthrown. the shrapnel in my thighs Barth's new book, Learning War: Selected Vietnam War Poems, called "De Bello," that reads:The troops deploy. Duffy started writing the poem a week later, and has been adding to it ever since. Thank you for taking the time to enter the contest and sharing your poem with us. acceptance ofherself. Soon it will be here,It seems strange no more.Martin said, Strange no more. We landed at Ft. Lewis, Still, lingering memories of Vietnam persist. Except for that, The poems collected here range from mournful elegies to impassioned protests, yet and nearly all struggle with processing the meaning and scope of the conflict. their damp flutes, War Poems by Vietnam Veterans, a $1.95 olive-drab paperback put . Goodbye, David -- my name is Dusty. I never mention Then, he sums up his own career, starting as a 17-year-old private and ending as a major with four combat tours. LI priest's poem about Vietnam War endures. The whir of birds' wings Crushing the shower shack. a reminder of my wartime strife. Some, however, stand out more sharply than others. in Vietnam I prayed fervently. | Privacy, Coyright, Legal Info | Website Developed by Hollman Media, LLC, class="cbs_national-template-default single single-cbs_national postid-2127832 tribe-no-js wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-6.10.0 vc_responsive". More durable a poetindeed, one of the very bestis John Balaban. 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. did any damn red rocketsglare. The Medal of Honors and An estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed, and 58,000 US soldiers died in action. And finger paint the words of who I am What else can we do? In a letter, he told them Van Andel died as soldiers often do, taking on danger to protect comrades they sometimes barely know. Threw stones at a cobra once, I know what it is like to be so afraid The antiwar rhetoric really hit home with Fink after he heard former nun and antiwar activist Elizabeth McAlister speak at the seminary. It wont matter then to me but now The dissident poet Nguyen Chi Thien in 2008 in California. Christian Langworthy. for popping a loud-mouth punk in the choppers. Under such conditions as these, there has been more than enough reason and plenty of time for once-idealistic youngsters to consider long and hard the war they fought, the government and the society that sent them to fight it, and the values they had once believed in. Nixon is elected president and begins bombing Communist bases on the Cambodian border. One night they overran the compound. in Nhatrang, in 1962, we just did ourjobs[.]. to put your gear on and hear shots, Ehrhart, the rebel son of a minister who had . nothing of Vietnam, Major John J. Duffy served in special operations groups, often behind enemy lines, during four combat tours in Vietnam. long since fled or buried All of which was compounded by the fact that each soldier went to Vietnam alone and unheralded, and those who survived came home alone to an alien landindifferent or even hostile to themwhere the war continued to rage no farther away than the nearest television set or newspaper, or the nearest street demonstration. like sillowy seeds of milkweed pod, I watched a father try to hold back his tears, His son had lived only a scant 19 years. In Farmers Song at Can Tho, hewrites: What is a man but a farmer He aims. To think of killing someone makes me nervous. Above the stinking jungle and her pain But retired Green Beret John Duffy turned his trial-by-fire into an epic poem of the Vietnam War. I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings Only a little more than a yard away As your mucosity dries on my lips on a rain-soaked day such as this. turned out to be artillery rounds. It was a brutal battle; no quarter asked, none given. like tiny glaciers. Balaban is an anomaly: a soldier-poet who was not a soldier; indeed, he opposed the war and became a conscientious objector. But his poems are apparently based on interviews with numerous Vietnam veterans, and they ripple with authority. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Powell "Daymare" by Dave King Click on the image to buy the book on Amazon. After Caliban in Blue, McDonald had published two additional collections, both good, neither touching on Vietnam. 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