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. tight-lipped men tell me the war in Vietnam is over, Cross, Jr. I hate you/with your yellow wrinkled skin, /and slanted eyes, your toothless grin. It would be another two years before Bruce Weigl would publish his first book-length collection, A Romance (University of Pittsburgh). To begin with, those who went to Vietnamwell into the late 1960s and contrary to popular perceptionwere largely young volunteers, eager and idealistic. You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments - and you get the tears at the end, too.". For more poems about war, consider the following: "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae. a procession of whales, and far off but the passing of a soldier, goes unnoticed, and unsung. a fool counting the cards, a monkey praying, I go to a slam once a month here in my neck of the woods and a Vietnam vet shares his experiences which go on and on and on. And here I am, ten years later, hemuses: written up in the local small town press War Poems by Vietnam Veterans, a $1.95 olive-drab paperback put . Thank you to all of our Veterans for their service and sacrifices to protect us all. as morning, curling, billows creep across No, it was a combat, said Duffy.Major John J. Duffy served in special operations groups, often behind enemy lines, during four combat tours in Vietnam. this pond her only Pacific, Like the Wall, Scruggs said, Finks poem addresses the loss that so many veterans felt and still feel. It had been 21 years since Jan Barry first went to Vietnam, and even the youngest of the vets were approaching their mid-30s. President Nixon orders the Christmas bombings, the heaviest US air strikes since WW II. The war killed him . Beat inside her until she rises It was also said the VC kept chickens leashed to strings. Albuquerque High School, 1962. Here we are at Vietnam. And when soldiers have too much time and too many questions and no answers worthy of the label, they begin to turn inward on their own thoughts where lies the terrible struggle to make sense of the enormity of the crime ofwar. 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. I am of the same generation as Harris, the courageous draft resister and anti-war campaigner who died on February 6. Poem for Our Dog Afraid of Thunder on a Rainy Day. his cooplike, concrete sentry perched mid-bridge Moments later, a mine exploded. but it never destroyed him., They cursed and killed and wept God knows, Pvt. A third major book to appear during the bicentennial year was Walter McDonalds Caliban in Blue (Texas Tech Press). This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. Or the ordinary fellow, who in times of war and strife. Unlike his earlier Vietnam poems, however, these few tackle the war straight up. So I can stay here beside you, was a pack, 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. got a standing ovation He wrote the poem a few years after coming home, when he was a student at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. Out of that hole and ran All of that was about to change forever. Because of his unique situation, however, Balaban brings to his poetry a perspective unlike any other. damn, Like its predecessor, DMZ contained much that relied on emotion rather than craft. Balaban is an anomaly: a soldier-poet who was not a soldier; indeed, he opposed the war and became a conscientious objector. Idly. Meet the influential author and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. What else can we do? forcing his touchagain. Indeed, of the 36 poems, only ten deal with the war. Of the 471 men committed,I came out after two weeks of intense battlewith 36 surviving,most of them had been wounded. No one couldve expected more from them. I am the . Fred was a selfless and wonderful young man. American troops return home with veterans benefits dramatically reduced since the era of WW II. As men whose duty it was to kill me filed by are sometimes disproportionate, to the service he gives. never! There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring. 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. . You chose to write poetry. Merwin, the Vietnam War remains a cultural milestone in citizen involvement. You did a good job. Apr 6, 2009. A company of NVAs crashing toward you hang around as a big dark cloud. Thank you for taking the time to enter the contest and sharing your poem with us. Moreover, for the most part, soldiers will fight and kill willingly only if they find that reason believable. "Memorial Day for the War Dead" by Yehuda Amichai. Soon it will be here,It seems strange no more.Martin said, Strange no more. old counting the year/in days, . He served as a correspondent during the conflict, and some of his descriptions of battle . 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. You never know if you'll get the chance again. To cross a river meant leeches. Outside, the buses waiting The time made him, in his words, more serious and played a subtle role in his decision to become a priest. 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. Waiting for the enemy, faces without names; Their bodies mount-up now God's to claim. Now I feel really sick. In 1963, John Kennedy said in a speech at Amherst College, When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. Surely Vietnam was evidence enough of the corruption of power, and one might venture to say that the act of writing these poems even the worst of themis an act of cleansing. All rights reserved. In remembrance of American involvement in Vietnam, the Poetry Foundation has assembled a selection of poems from our archives that address the conflict and its aftermath. Bury Me With Soldiers is the title that Charles Fink gave his poem, inspired by an ambush that he somehow survived as a 22-year-old specialist 4. No sweat, man, Duffy replies. That's what my writings reflect. It is my sincere wish that someone will find these heart-felt writings useful. Running from her village, napalm | 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". 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 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. Bones They were fighting for what they believed in. But his poems are apparently based on interviews with numerous Vietnam veterans, and they ripple with authority. Kill or die is our fate.It sounds like going in you knew this was a battle to the death, said Martin.We were given orders to fight to the death, Duffy replied.In his poem, Duffy imagines the orders the North Vietnamese commander gave his troops: if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[580,400],'sandhillsexpress_com-banner-1','ezslot_5',114,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-sandhillsexpress_com-banner-1-0');The big American with the radio on his back,I want him killed, he is controlling the aircraft.He is attacking our anti-aircraft and artillery guns.He moves often. How can peace be in a greencountry? And your platoon moves out without you, There are five others beside you. None of his words had "b" in them. Maurice DeCaul watched as his battalion's artillery units fired into the city. It temains as relevant today as it did then. Fire at it A second influential anthology of Vietnam War poetry, edited from five thousand submissions by W.D. Blond, boyish, his sense of humor intact, grubby like the rest of us, sick of war, but good and charming and wholesome. You chose to write poetry. An event that stunned the nation and forced an examination of U.S. military training and tactics. When I did, a state trooper walked up and stood next to me. 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. 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. Across my chest By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy. But it is probably safe to say that no politician or general ever waged war without offering some higher moral reason for doing so. I have nothing she needs but Balaban is particularly adept at contrasting the impact of the war on Vietnam with the indifference of those at home. They were young enough to have no worldly experience whatsoever, they had absorbed the values of their society wholesale, and they had no earthly reason before their arrival in Vietnam to doubt either their government or the society that willingly acquiesced in theirgoing. And other poets may yet emerge. The Medal of Honors and I live in the greatest country in the world in the greatest time in history, (Published sometime in 1976 in Time Magazine with 25,000 requests for reprint). Until I slipped and climbed as men whose duty it was to kill me filed by. Oct. 7, 2012. Katie Greeter Team Leader Shivering uncontrollably in the mud to the microphone Even more chilling is Song of Napalm, in which he tries to appreciate the wonder of horses in a pasture after astorm: Still I close my eyes and see the girl For when countries are in conflict, then we find the Soldier's part. It was a brutal battle; no quarter asked, none given. 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.. Records, souvenirs, pretending I am a farmer and I know what I know. So easily frightened they were perfect warning. March 30, 2022 7:00 AM EDT. Stuck to her dress like jelly, Bobrowsky, Cross, and Purcell contribute powerful poems. 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 His 2019 novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, followed a boy who, like Vuong, is an immigrant from Vietnam. Duffy started writing the poem a week later, and has been adding to it ever since. we called forjets. I've never been a killing kind of man. Current Location. Among his many awards and decorations were 29 for valor. 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. and sent to the Mess Hall, choice USA steaks. But for others in the volume, and for Vietnam-related poetry in general, Winning Hearts and Minds proved to be only the forerunner for a body Climbing To suggest further additions, please contact us. Ehrhart (image on the left), was aptly called Carrying the Darkness. 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