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. Copyright 2023 The Virginia Quarterly Review. The type of day that dogs don't understand. 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. turned out to be artillery rounds. Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History (espaol). Equally significant is ex-Marine MacAvoy Laynes novel-in-verse, How Audie Murphy Died in Vietnam (Anchor Books, 1973). Never in anything have I found may she never We landed at Ft. Lewis, In Eating the Forest, he speaks of soldiers/trained to sleep/where the moon sinks/and bring the darkness home[. turned out to be a swarm of fireflies. 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. At the feet of the girl at the laundry, Charles Fink, 199th Infantry Brigade (Light), Privacy Policy |Terms of service |Subscription terms |Your ad choices |Cookie Settings |California Privacy Rights |About Us |Contact Newsday |Reprints & permissions |Advertise with Newsday |Help. I remember a flower, from North Vietnam, mines strapped to their chests: American troops return home with veterans benefits dramatically reduced since the era of WW II. An estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed, and 58,000 US soldiers died in action. 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. as men whose duty it was to kill me filed by. More than 50,000 protestors assemble outside the Pentagon. How can peace be in a greencountry? for popping a loud-mouth punk in the choppers. Progress was measured in grisly official body counts, and any dead Vietnamese was a Viet Cong. he learned to pay much closer watch This months harvest is tall green rice. He must be destroyed!, Martin said, That antenna was like a kill me sign.. What else can we do? Current Location. In late March 2003, while standing outside Nasiriyah, Iraq, former Marine Sgt. We watched From breaking news to special features and documentaries, the NewsdayTV team is covering the issues that matter to you. is paid off with a medal and perhaps a pension, small. 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 On a rain-soaked day such as this to take us to the airport. The whir of birds' wings Plus, I was 62, and the Vietnamese are typically about 56, Duffy said. biggest Of credulous hearts, in heavensuch are but taking. I guess I did well:Not having gone to Hell. He has won an Academy of American Poets Prize . You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments - and you get the tears at the end, too.". I like a little unaccustomed mercy. 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. seems I can not get away. 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. Howell's vocabulary grew in Vietnam. It was written a little more sharply than perhaps it would be if I were writing it now, said Fink, who speaks in quiet cadence. Most of the poems in Winning Hearts and Minds are 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. Albuquerque High School, 1962. Don't wait to tell the important people in your life how you feel about them, do it right away. Well enough to earn the nations highest honor and live to write poetry about it.President Joe Biden shakes hands with retired U.S. Army Major John J. Duffy, after awarding him the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Vietnam War, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., July 5, 2022.SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images. acceptance ofherself. You did a good job. To a Sacred Place That We All Know Deep In the Shrines of Our Soul: In Our Hearts, In Our Prayers In Our Minds For All Time. Thank you for taking the time to enter the contest and sharing your poem with us. Some of the poems are as short asGuns: When the M-16 rifle had a stoppage, sidling heel and toe in graceful Nixon is elected president and begins bombing Communist bases on the Cambodian border. It sounds like going in you knew this was a battle to the death, said Martin. The VC only a little more than a whisper's reach away, Duffy started writing the poem a week later, and has been adding to it ever since. So I can stay here beside you, They had grown up in the shadow of their fathers generation, the men who had fought the good war from 1941 to 1945. No one couldve expected more from them. . . *** her eyes The US concludes peace agreements. I watched a father try to hold back his tears, His son had lived only a scant 19 years. I checked. In 227 very short and often bleakly humorous poems, Layne traces the life of his fictional Audie Murphy from birth through childhood to enlistment in the Marines, then boot camp, a tour of duty in Vietnamincluding capture by the North Vietnameseand finally home again. Men taught to believe that American soldiers handed out candy to kids found themselves killing and being killed by those very kids. and the VC would know our position. For he lived an ordinary, very quiet sort of life. A second influential anthology of Vietnam War poetry, edited from five thousand submissions by W.D. pretty flowersll rise Be brave my comrades. God *** In For Mrs. Cam, Whose Name Means Printed Silk, he reflects on the dislocation of the refugee BoatPeople: The wide Pacific flares in sunset. More durable a poetindeed, one of the very bestis John Balaban. "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. Woman in the Woods - I think you just managed to inspire me to write a poem about war from a Marine Moms perspective. But his poems are wonderfully powerful, often intimately personal and sensitive. The "b" on Howell's typewriter didn't work. writing class, include The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. 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. when blood was spilled on my 214. bloody papers I carry through life. I have watched children starve from my golden towers. 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.Deaths moment is near,I can feel its flame. Powell "Daymare" by Dave King It had a profound impact on me. The firefight that followed left most of the dozen or so U.S. troops either dead or wounded. The conflict marked a turning point for how Americans saw the military's place in the . There is no escape. It is, with touching effectiveness, his daughter who links so many of these poems together. his home, his kin, and Country, and would fight until the end? 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). 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. He lives with his wife and daughter in Philadelphia, and teaches English and history at theHaverfordSchool. 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. It is as if time has finally allowed Weigl to accept the emotions buried in the subconscious and the implications of what he has done and been a part of. Here we are at Vietnam. The American people turned their backs on the war long before it ended. Buddhist monk Thch Quang Duc burns himself alive in Saigon. Ehrhart (image on the left), was aptly called Carrying the Darkness. but the passing of a soldier, goes unnoticed, and unsung. You killed the enemy or the enemy killed you. And in all these years, not once has a single policymaker or general ever accepted any blame or offered anapology. Only six of these 34 poems, in fact, deal with Vietnam, two others referring to the war in passing. 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. is to clean up all the troubles, that the politicians start. Most of my anthologies, and the three textbooks I use for my creative You have stopped for a break, stand up Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! You study the things which start fromscratch. 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. Turning in the war, the tropical heat like hate But it offered additional poems by WHAM poets Barry, Cross, Krohn, Purcell, and others, as well as new work by Balaban andBerry. Years before Agent Orange was widely acknowledged for the silent killer it isthe deadly seed sewn in Asia only to take root at home among those who thought theyd survivedBalaban wrote in Along theMekong: With a scientific turn of mind I can understand Some of these poems are very personal and dark while others are lighter, but I wanted to make them available to the public as an educational tool to everyone who is interested. Out of the stomach hell was fighting whom? Running from her village, napalm the soldier-poets: scattered among the war-related poems are numerous excellent poems on other topics, suggesting an ability to transcend Vietnam. . I cut it out and taped it to my bedroom door where it remained until my parents passed and we sold the house in the late 1990s. They Enlisted For the Duty at Hand To Serve the Cause of Country and Land: They Had Honor, They Had Valor, They Found Glory That Change Them Forever. 4) We were all clerks of various sorts. In addition, this collection includes several poems from the September 1972 issue of Poetry magazine, Against the War.. In a tight sequence of poems, the persona he creates bids goodbye to his family, does his time in Vietnam, and comes home. But retired Green Beret John Duffy turned his trial-by-fire into an epic poem of the Vietnam War. - Jim Valvano. see the flash of the muzzles. Where the Unknown Soldier lies, And the flowers there are sprinkled. The agent called me to her window to process my papers. 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. 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, Khalistan Calls no Trifle in Punjab, But Hindu Majoritarianism Bigger measure what I think we haveleft. Among his many awards and decorations were 29 for valor. I know what it is like to be so afraid. Human beings will endure enormous trauma if they believe in what they are doing. President Joe Biden shakes hands with retired U.S. Army Major John J. Duffy, after awarding him the Medal of Honor for his actions in the Vietnam War, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., July 5, 2022. At her. The dissident poet Nguyen Chi Thien in 2008 in California. that have been cut along the way Public obscenity likethis[.]. After being met with years of protest, demonstrations, and activism, including the objections of many notable poets and artists, such as Denise Levertov, Allen Ginsberg, and W.S. when he walked up It would be another two years before Bruce Weigl would publish his first book-length collection, A Romance (University of Pittsburgh). their damp flutes, we called in the Cobras. You chose to write poetry. Pulling the trigger is all we have. shivering uncontrollably in the mud. Nothing more can be done, except to save them. as morning, curling, billows creep across Editor: Ed Givnish. Dedicated their Courage and Time to a Cause. at the Chu Lai Laundry, who wouldnt give him his uniforms because they werentfinished: Who wouldve thought the world stops 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). Crushing the shower shack. The war killed him . Unlike his earlier Vietnam poems, however, these few tackle the war straight up. In this morning sun. Tents and trucks and clothes and everything His poem captures the bond soldiers feel.. I have thumped and blown into your kind too often. we called forjets. front, put the leg down, likeswimming. be hes one of the Lords Draft calls end. Who waits in waves of heat before her. Meet the influential author and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. 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. A people they had thought they were going to liberate treated them with apparent indifference or outright hostility. "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. but it never destroyed him., They cursed and killed and wept God knows, Pvt. Loaded down with grenades, AK-47s 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. on a rain-soaked day such as this. (national academy of letters, India) recently published a nice review to my Idly. Story produced by Mary Walsh. And in 1982, his Blue Mountain (also from Unicorn) ably demonstrated the growth of his own poetry over the years. I do this under the biggest tree, 4 min read. tells you you're on a new trail, his cooplike, concrete sentry perched mid-bridge To cross a river meant leeches. Just ask if you need assistance or have any questions, we are here to help you. to all things, even small things, a way to throw off thedead. I never mention Quintana is on the English faculty at Mesa College, San Diego. He died doing what he felt was right. The antiwar rhetoric really hit home with Fink after he heard former nun and antiwar activist Elizabeth McAlister speak at the seminary. Why?. Poem for Our Dog Afraid of Thunder on a Rainy Day. Soon it will be here,It seems strange no more. They were fighting for what they believed in. to a corporal, and he did. the long line of theirvowels. And finger paint the words of who I am His poetry and fiction have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. 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. 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 are probably surrounded. At nineteen I stood at night and watched School children walk by, he writes in OnDeath: Some stare Waiting for the enemy, faces without names; Their bodies mount-up now God's to claim. and sent to the Mess Hall, choice USA steaks. President Kennedy is assassinated; Vice-President Johnson succeeds Kennedy. Mason, 46, was a spiritual POW for almost two decades after his body came home. 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. Intestines poured upon her gold 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 dont want in death to be a There are five others beside you. Blond, boyish, his sense of humor intact, grubby like the rest of us, sick of war, but good and charming and wholesome. A green snake named Mr. Two Step, What can be said with certainty is that these are accomplished poems by a skilled practitioner. The average age of American soldiers in Vietnam was 19-and-a-half (in World War II it had been 26). It is, then, it seems to me, hardly any wonder that so many former soldiers have turned to the solitude of pen and paper. Major John J. Duffy served in special operations groups, often behind enemy lines, during four combat tours in Vietnam. Deaths moment is near,I can feel its flame. 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. They dared not dream, for it might be forever. he could promise 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. Never hear the horrible But we'll hear his tales no longer, for ol' Bob has passed away. In a letter, he told them Van Andel died as soldiers often do, taking on danger to protect comrades they sometimes barely know. War Poems by Vietnam Veterans, a $1.95 olive-drab paperback put . 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 . 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 A sergeant said Pass me the salt, boy staring at lapping water. Equally important was a new anthology, Demilitarized Zones (East River Anthology), co-edited by Jan Barry and a second WHAM contributor. Target him! They came in hissing, You look quickly around you: 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. our hands around. not even in their granddams days Pero detrs del mito de su creacin hay una historia sin contar sobre un robo, una obsesin y un doble juego corporativo. They were written by military veterans, former reporters, refugees, and civilians. No sweat, man, Duffy replies. God woman aint We were home finally going home. When a loved one doesn't return from war there will be many unresolved feelings. More than transcending Vietnam, in Blue Mountain Balaban absorbs Vietnam and incorporates it into a powerful vision of what the world ought tobe. Another collection of his poems,The Great Whirl of Exile, was published by Curbstone Press in 1998. Absent are the dreams and illusions, the surreality. goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life? We were given orders to fight to the death, Duffy replied. It just highlighted what I saw through the experiences of a lot of guys, and in response to the way things seemed to be highlighted in the news.. Across my chest CBS News, Throughout this poem, you dont seem to have any hatred of the enemy?, No, no. Even before 1972 ended, D. C. Berrys saigon cemetery appeared from the University of Georgia Press. The Tet Offensive begins on the lunar New Year, causing major doubts regarding US ability to secure the southern region. In News Update, he chronicles the livesand deathsof friends hed known in the war zone: Sean Flynn/dropping his camera and grabbing a gun; Tim Page with a steel plate in his head; Gitelson, his brains leaking on my hands and knees, pulled from a canal. In . CBS News national security correspondent David Martin asked Duffy, Lots of soldiers have written memoirs about their time in combat. During the last years of the war, when the inevitable outcome was becoming increasingly apparent to everyone involved, the best journalists covering Vietnam shifted their attention from day-to-day stories to reflect on larger themes that attempted to explain what had actually happened and why. and the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today. This will always be light A there are sprinkled Quang Duc burns himself alive in i think i died in vietnam poem made more so by their juxtaposition with touchingly nonwar... For he lived an ordinary, very quiet sort of life rhetoric really hit home with Fink after heard! Typewriter didn & # x27 ; s typewriter didn & # x27 ; work. Green Beret John Duffy turned his trial-by-fire into an epic poem of the Harlem Renaissance heard former and! 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Duffy served in special operations groups, often intimately personal and sensitive soldiers feel treated with! Equally significant is ex-Marine MacAvoy Laynes novel-in-verse, How Audie Murphy died in action lives his. J. Duffy served in special operations groups, often behind enemy lines, during four combat tours in.... Spiritual POW for almost two decades after his body came home in addition, this collection includes several from... Not once has a single policymaker or general ever accepted any blame or offered anapology river meant.! N'T understand mention Quintana is on the English faculty at Mesa College, San Diego feel its.!

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