2        
Early Work

Hue, Vietnam, 1968. Marines play cards on the destroyed wall of a cemetery during the Tet Offensive.

 

Most of the books that came out during the war were nonfiction and political in nature—anti- or prowar tracts, position papers and studies of the larger forces involved in the region. With the notable exception of The Green Berets, nearly all the Vietnam fiction and poetry of note that came out between 1965 and 1973 was antiwar, and most appeared after 1968, when even such an establishment figure as trusted evening newscaster Walter Cronkite conceded on air that the war was unwinnable. As on campus, the climate in serious American literature was staunchly antiwar, with marquee writers like Norman Mailer, Mary McCarthy, and Robert Bly stridendy denouncing first the Johnson and then the Nixon administrations. War supporters John Steinbeck and Jack Kerouac were seen as traitors to their more socially committed roots and reprimanded in print.

Like much of the socially conscious literature of the period, the works in this chapter look at the moral choices individuals make or refuse to make in relation to some larger group (the Army, America as a whole, humanity), questioning individuality and the consequences of conformity To many people, the reality of the war seemed an affront to American political and moral ideals; it seemed un-American. Other opponents of the war noted similarities to earlier U.S. conquests, most often the near-eradication of the Native Americans. It was business as usual, they claimed. In the early work, as in all the work, authors examine claims of American innocence and evil, reaching back into history for evidence. Home-front America shows up here as well. There’s an attempt to bring the war home, or at least to contrast the daily hardships and brutality of the war with America’s fatuous affluence. Again, the portrayal of the Vietnamese is interesting across these pieces, as is the view of the older generation, though, as usual, the final identification the authors ask the reader to make is with the U.S. soldier, to understand his conflicted position.

Of all the major American novels about Vietnam, David Halberstam’s one very hot day (1967) is singular in that it’s the only one with Vietnamese point-of-view characters. Halberstam was a high-profile journalist assigned to the region in the early years of the U.S. buildup and has written insightfully about the war in both fiction and nonfiction. one very hot day is written in a plain, realistic style. Like The Green Berets, it was picked up by the Book of the Month Club; as of 1998 it’s still in print.

Chapter VII of Tim O’Brien’s If I Die in a Combat Zone (1973) brings the green reader into Vietnam in the second person, then switches to “us,” and finally “1” as new guy O’Brien shows us a number of Army personnel and their differing views of Vietnam. The flat, economical Hemingway style only emphasizes how strange and frightening his new surroundings are, and the portraits he draws of his fellow soldiers are decidedly unheroic.

While American poets had been writing antiwar poetry for years, Michael Casey’s Obscenities (1972) was the first major collection written by a veteran. It won the 1972 Yale Younger Poets Prize and earned glowing notices in the New York Times Book Review and elsewhere. Casey served as an MP along Highway 1 in 1969-70. His work here is plainspoken, lightly ironic, and sneakily deep, and few American writers have so successfully drawn the difficult relationship between American soldiers and the Vietnamese civilians around them.

Vet David Rabe’s play Sticks and Bones was first produced by a university theater in 1969, but was later chosen for a major Broadway production in 1971 by the powerful director Joseph Papp. It’s a confrontational piece, extravagant in its effects—including ghosts, onstage violence, absurd humor, and blatantly emblematic characters. The family is patterned after the plastic Nelson family from 1950s TV, and American denial of the war and protestations of innocence are thoroughly shredded.

On the heels of Michael Casey’s Obscenities, small presses across the United States published a number of important collections of veterans’ poetry. Vets Jan Barry and W. D. Ehrhart gathered the finest pieces from these as well as uncollected poems for their anthology Demilitarized Zones (1976). Typical of the early period, much of the strongest work in the book examines the difficulty of conveying the experience of the war to an uncaring America.

Authors of the period often responded to that difficulty by trying innovative forms or strategies, breaking away from the realistic or at least showing it in a strange light. In much of the early work, ironic, often disturbing humor provided both a relief and a way of confronting the horrible facts. Authors used the impact of war on the body to prompt a visceral rather than intellectual response, with interesting results. Rabe’s tactic of contrasting the stark terror of the war with plastic popular culture is shocking, whereas O’Brien and Casey use a more subtle, deadpan humor.

While these early works were well received, none was widely read beyond a small intelligensia. It would not be until the mid-seventies, well after the fall of Saigon, that Americans as a whole looked back and rediscovered the war.

 

one very hot day

DAVID HALBERSTAM

1967

At eleven thirty they were moving haphazardly along the canal, one of those peaceful moments when earlier fears were forgotten, and when it was almost as if they were in some sort of trance from the heat and the monotony, when they were fired on. Three quick shots came from the left, from the other side of the canal. They appeared to hit short, and they landed near the center of the column, close to where Lieutenant Anderson was. He wheeled toward the bullets, spoke quickly in Vietnamese, taking three men with him and sending a fourth back to tell Thuong what he was doing—not to send anyone unless it was clearly a real fight, and he could hear automatic weapon fire; they were taking no automatic weapons, Anderson said.

He sensed that it was not an ambush; you trip an ambush with a full volley of automatic weapons fire—to get the maximum surprise firepower and effect, you don’t trip it with a few shots from an M-l rifle; the fact that the sniper had fired so quickly, Anderson thought, meant that there was probably one man alone who wanted to seem like more than one man. But damn it, he thought, you never really know here, you tried to think like them and you were bound to get in trouble: you thought of the obvious and they did the unique. He brought his squad to the canal bank, and two more bullets snapped near them. Ping, snap. Ping, snap.

He told one of the Viets to go above him on the canal bank, and one to stay below him, and one to stay behind him as he waded the canal. They were to cover him as he crossed, and they were not to cross themselves until he was on the other side; he didn’t want all four of them bogged down in mid-canal when they found out there was an automatic weapon on the other side. They nodded to him. Do you understand me, he asked in Vietnamese. He turned to one of them and asked him to repeat the instructions. Surprisingly the Vietnamese repeated the instructions accurately.

“The Lieutenant swims?” the Viet added.

“The Lieutenant thinks he swims,” Anderson said, and added, “do you swim?”

The man answered: “We will all find out.”

Anderson waited for a third burst of fire, and when it came, closer this time, he moved quickly to the canal bank and into the water, sinking more than waist high immediately. As he moved he kept looking for the sniper’s hiding place; so far he could not tell where the bullets were coming from. He sensed the general direction of the sniper, but couldn’t judge exactly where the sniper was. He was all alone in the water, moving slowly, his legs struggling with the weight of the water and the suck of the filth below him. He knew he was a good target, and he was frightened; he moved slowly, as in a slow-motion dream; he remembered one of the things they had said of the VC in their last briefings. (“The VC infantryman is tenacious and will die in position and believes fanatically in the ideology because he has been brainwashed all his life since infancy, but he is a bad shot, yes, gentlemen, he is not a good shot, and the snipers are generally weak, because you see, men, they need glasses. The enemy doesn’t get to have glasses. The Communists can’t afford ’em, and our medical people have checked them out and have come up with studies which show that because of their diet, because their diet doesn’t have as much meat and protein, their eyes are weak, and they don’t get glasses, so they are below us as snipers. Brave, gentlemen, but nearsighted, remember that.”) He remembered it and hoped it was true.

Ahead of him all he could see was brush and trees. Remember, he thought, he may be up in the trees: it was another one of the briefings: “Vietcong often take up positions in the tops of trees, just like the Japanese did, and you must smell them out. Remember what I’m telling you, it may save your life. You will be walking along in the jungle, hot and dirty. And you hear a sniper, and because your big fat feet are on the ground, you think that sniper’s feet are on the ground too. But you’re wrong, he’s sitting up there in the third story, measuring the size of your head, counting your squad, and ready to ruin your headgear. They like the jungle, and what’s in the jungle? Trees. Lots of ’em. Remember it, gentlemen, smell them in the trees.”

Anderson had left the briefing thinking all Vietcong were in the trees; even now as he walked, he kept his eye on the trees more than on the ground.

Behind him he heard the Viets firing now, but there was still no fire from the sniper. He reached the middle of the canal where the water was deepest; only part of his neck, his head, and his arms and weapons were above water now. He struggled forward until he reached the far side of the canal. He signaled to the Viets to hold fire, and then, holding his weapon in one hand (he did not want to lay it on the canal bank, suppose someone reached out from behind a bush and grabbed it), he rolled himself up on the canal edge, but there was still no fire. He punched through the first curtain of brush, frightened because he did not know what would be there (Raulston had once done this, pushed through and found to his surprise a Vietcong a few feet away; they had looked at each other in total surprise, and the Vietcong had suddenly turned and fled—though Beaupre in retelling the story claimed that it was Raulston who had fled, that the Vietcong had lost face by letting him escape, had lied to his superiors, and that Raulston was now listed on Vietcong rolls as having been killed in action, and that Raulston was now safe because they didn’t dare kill him again).

He moved past the canal and into the dense brush, found what looked like a good position, and fired off a clip to the left, right in front of him, most of the clip to his right, and finally, for the benefit of his instructors, for Fort Benning, the last one into a tree nest. Nothing happened and he reloaded and moved forward. Then there were two little pings, still in front of him, though sounding, perhaps it was his imagination, further away. But the enemy was there, and so, encouraged, he began to move forward again, his senses telling him that the sniper was slightly to his right. He was alone, he had kept the others back at the canal bank; they would be no help here, for they would surely follow right behind him and he would be in more trouble for the noise they would make and for being accidentally shot from behind, that great danger of single-file patrolling; yet going like this, he sensed terribly how alone he was—he was in their jungle, they could see him, know of him, they could see things he couldn’t see, there might be more of them. He moved forward a few yards, going slowly both by choice and necessity in the heavy brush. If there had been a clock on the ground, where he left the canal and entered the jungle, it would have been six o’clock, and he was now moving slowly toward one o’clock. He kept moving, firing steadily now. From time to time he reversed his field of fire. Suddenly there was a ping, landing near him, the sound closer, but coming from the left, from about eleven o’clock. The shot sounded closer, and more excited and frightened now, he moved quickly in that direction, feeling the brush scratch his arms and his face (he couldn’t use his hands to protect his face, they were on his weapon); now he squeezed off another clip, two quick ones, three quick ones, the last three spaced out, a musical scale really.

There was no answer and he pressed forward, the jungle still around both of them. Then he was answered again, the mating call, two little pings, the VC’s weapon had a lower pitch than his, and the sound—and this made him angry—was coming from the right, near one o’clock, where he had just been. He cursed under his breath, and moved quickly to his right, realizing even as he pushed ahead that he was doing a foolish thing, that he was violating all the rules he had been taught, that he was offering an American officer to a trap that he might be taken prisoner; at Benning they had warned against that, don’t be captured, there was too much psychological advantage the VC could take, showing him around in the villages.

Still he pressed on, angry, frustrated. He thought the VC was mocking him, playing a game with him; you didn’t do that in war, war was not a game, you didn’t screw around, play jokes with rifles. He fired off another clip toward one o’clock and moved there. Then there was a ping from the left, back at ten o’clock. He moved a little to his left, but he didn’t fire. A few minutes passed while the Vietcong finally grasped his message, that Anderson for the time being was not going to fire. Finally there was a ping, from eight o’clock this time; the sniper was behind him. But he couldn’t fire in that direction or he might hit one of his own men. He waited and waited and then charged toward six o’clock, ready to fire at point-blank range. But nothing happened.

Suddenly there was a ping ping from eleven o’clock. He turned and fired angrily, shouting: “Come out, you sonofabitch, come on, come on out. Fight. Come on, I’m waiting, I’m here.”

He waited but nothing happened. Did he hear a giggle? He made the same challenge in Vietnamese, but it sounded foolish to him. No giggle this time. There were no more shots. He checked his watch. He had been gone ten minutes. He waited two minutes more, and nothing happened. Still angry, he went back to the canal bank, and collected the other Viets.

“Sometimes,” said one of them, “Vietcong are like the pederasts. Don’t feel so badly. It is their game.”

Anderson nodded grimly, and they crossed the canal in single file; Anderson much taller than the Viets, his head barely above water, was amazed; just as much of them showed above water as of him.

“The war is good for the leeches in the canal,” said one of the Viets, “that is all. A full meal for them today.”

He nodded, and then moved back to the main path. At least they would be able to move quickly, while catching up with the rest of the unit.

Anderson came upon them quicker than he expected. They had stopped and were gathered around a very small Vietnamese. They had formed a circle and the Vietnamese was standing with his hands up and his back to a tree; Dang was standing in front of him, towering over him, and Beaupre was behind Dang, towering over him. They get smaller and smaller, Anderson thought. As he approached, he heard Dang say, “Murderer, we have caught the murderer. VC dog. The dog.”

“Got to be one of theirs,” Beaupre said. “Doesn’t weigh more than fifty pounds. All ours weigh more than that.”

Dang was in charge of the interrogation. “A Communist VC,” he said to Anderson, “part of the ambush plot against us.”

“He means the little scouting party you just went on,” Beaupre whispered.

“Proceed with the interrogation of the Communist Vietcong prisoner,” Dang told Thuong. “I will assist when necessary.”

The suspect said he was Hung Van Trung.

“Of course that’s his name,” Beaupre told Anderson, “they all have that name, that or Trung Van Hung or Hung Van Hung.” His age was fifty-eight.

“The Communist is probably lying about his age,” Dang said, “these people lie about everything.”

Suspect said he owned a water buffalo: “Rich bastard, eh,” Beaupre said when Anderson translated, “usually they don’t even own a goddamn chicken by the time we catch them.”

He came from the village of Ap Xuan Thong.

“Is he a Communist? Ask him if he is a Communist.” Dang shouted and the prisoner began to mumble, a rambling guttural chant which seemed half song and half prayer.

“Tell him we are interested in his relationship with Ho Chi Minh and not his relationship with Buddha,” Dang said.

A corporal slapped the prisoner. He was loyal to the government, he insisted, he was sometimes a government agent.

“Knees are too bony for one of ours,” Beaupre told Anderson. In fact the prisoner said he was in trouble because the local Communist cadre which was headed by Thuan Han Thuan (“How can the VC chief have the same name as our man there?” Beaupre said), suspected that he worked for the government and had taken his wife away last night when the Communists had come; when he mentioned the cadre chief’s name, he paused as if expecting that this would confirm his story.

Dang asked him for his identification card, and he could produce none, and Dang slapped him. He claimed the Communists had taken it and he was slapped again. They asked him about children. He said he had three sons, and mentioned daughters, but seemed unsure of the number. Of the sons, he said, one had died of a disease. Which disease, he was asked; the yellow disease, he answered, and they all nodded yes, the yellow disease, that one, though later it turned out they were unsure exactly what the yellow disease was.

“Yellow disease,” Beaupre said when told, “everybody in this goddamn country’s got that. How the hell can you die from it?”

Two of the other sons had served with the government forces; he believed one was dead and one was alive.

“What units?” Thuong asked, the tone of his voice reflecting his boredom with the interrogation. The prisoner said he did not know the units, but they fought against the Vietminh, he was sure of that.

“Tell him that it is not the Vietminh, it is the Vietcong,” Dang said, and the corporal slapped him again.

“Now tell us what happened,” Thuong said, “and try to make it as honest as you can. Show us your heart is pure.”

The prisoner nodded and began: he had worked long that day and had gone to bed early. It was the rainy season and there was more to be done this year because of last year’s drought.

“Ask him what he had for breakfast,” Beaupre told Anderson, “go ahead. Speed up the interrogation.”

The prisoner was interrupted by Thuong who told him to hurry up with the story if he wanted to live to finish it. He had gone to bed early when he was called by Thuan Van Thuan.

“Is he a neighbor?” asked Thuong.

“No, he lives three houses away,” said the prisoner.

“Sweet Jesus,” said Beaupre. “The prisoner said he knew it was trouble right away.”

“Why,” demanded Dang, “because he knew all his Communist friends were coming? All the dogs were coming?”

“No,” said the prisoner, “because Thuan’s voice was loud and commanding”; he stopped, and it appeared for a second that he was going to say, commanding, like the Captain’s, but then he continued. Usually Thuan’s voice was soft and supplicating, an attitude he did not trust because Thuan was not honest. He claimed to have an electric box, the only one in the village from which he received special messages from Saigon and Paris and Hanoi; the prisoner was sure it was a false electric box. Thuan had been arrogant and had demanded they come to a meeting; Thuan had insisted that his wife come too, which upset him since she had been sick and coughing and had finally fallen asleep, but Thuan had given them no choice and so they were taken to the center of the hamlet, where lamps had been lit, and where there were twelve visitors, all men. He knew right away they were soldiers.

“Did they have any weapons?” Thuong asked.

“I didn’t see any,” he said, “but he knew they were there.”

“How does he know?” Dang asked, “because he is one of them.”

“Because of the way the men behaved,” he said, “men who have guns behave one way and men who do not behave another.”

He seemed puzzled that they did not understand the distinction, and asked Thuong: “You have never talked with a man with a gun when you don’t have one?”

“Good question,” Beaupre said, “the sonofabitch is telling the truth.”

The suspect stopped as if waiting for someone to stop him; he said the men had talked about politics and said that the long noses (he looked embarrassed at Anderson and Beaupre) were coming to the village the next day and would try to kill all the people. Then they had served tea. He himself had taken two glasses. He had wanted to take only one, but had been afraid if he took one, this might offend the Vietminh.

“Vietcong,” Dang corrected, less angrily this time.

Some of the others had taken three cups.

“See how many cups he’ll take from us,” Beaupre said when Anderson translated this.

The next day he had been told to go north from the village, because the Americans were coming from the south, east and west, and for that reason he had slipped away and gone south. Thuong asked him about his wife; she had been kept by the Communists as a bearer and as a hostage. Thuong continued to ask questions about the enemy, and Beaupre pulled Anderson aside and told him to get on the American radio and quickly call the information in; he did not trust the Viets; if it were left to them, the intelligence might not reach the CP until the next day.

“He was telling the truth, wasn’t he?” Anderson said.

Beaupre didn’t say anything for a minute. “Yes,” he finally answered, “he’s felling the truth. That’s the worst thing about it. Makes you long for the usual ones, who’ve never seen a VC, never heard of the war.”

He walked on a few yards. “A rock and hard place. That’s where we are, between a rock and a hard place.”

He felt dry and thirsty and a little nervous; he had mocked this operation from the start, and most of his fear had disappeared with the selection of Big William for the helicopters. Now he was becoming frightened again, aware of his age and the senselessness of the war—not the killing but the endless walking each day and the returning to My Tho with nothing done, nothing seen, nothing accomplished, nothing changed, just hiking each day with death, taking chances for so very little, wondering if he were going to be sold out, wondering whom you could trust. He had not distrusted people in World War II. He had been assigned to an infantry regiment and he had fought with a variety of men, some had been good soldiers, some weak, some brave, and some cowardly, some who had loved the war, and most who had hated it, but whatever, there had never been a quality of distrust. It had been simpler there, even in Germany, where you hated everyone, but once you entered the villages, you were not loved and kissed, you were not ambushed or tricked or betrayed. The distrust had begun in Korea when suddenly it was more than a matter of fighting and killing, instead it was a matter of wondering where you were going, and whose intelligence had set it up and who was paying, was it only one side: a matter of looking into the face of the man when you finally met him, and perhaps looking for too much, seeing things which didn’t exist, and looking for things which had no right to exist, which probably had never existed. “Don’t expect our Korean agents to have blue eyes and blond hair and friendly smiles,” they had told him, “they don’t. They don’t look like Marines. They look like gooks because they are gooks. Don’t you worry about who they are or the way they look. You let us do the worrying. All you have to do is keep the goddamn loose change out of your pockets because it makes too much noise on cold winter nights out there, that and trust your compass and your own good common sense. We don’t expect you to like the Koreans, that’s not your job.” But compared to this country, Korea was simple: here you began with distrust, you assumed it about everything, even things you thought you knew. Even the Americans seemed different to him now, and he trusted them less; in order to survive in this new world and this new Army, they had changed. Yes was no longer exactly yes, no was no longer exactly no, maybe was more certainly maybe.

“I think we may be getting ourselves sold out,” he said, and then added to Anderson, one of the few kind things he said that day or any other, “you be a little careful now. Hear?”

There was a terrible quality of truth to what Thuong had just heard and he did not like it; he had not liked the operation from the start and he had always disagreed with Headquarters and Staff over the area. Staff called it a blue area (the Americans, he decided, loved maps even more than the French and had taught them about red, white and blue areas; the Americans loved to change the colors, to turn red into white and white into blue, to put red pins on white spots and blue pins on red spots) and blue was supposed to be secure, but Thuong had never liked the area; he did not operate there often and so he tended to accept the Headquarters’ version of the area as being secure, only to find once they were in the area that it was not quite what it seemed, that it was always a little more hostile than the authorities claimed. He suspected that it was a Communist area where the guerrillas did little in the way of challenging the government and were content to rest somewhat tranquil on the surface, using it as a communications path. The Arvin recruited, Thuong remembered, few government soldiers from the area, and the young men they did take showed a higher desertion rate than might have been expected.

He walked beside the suspect, near the rear of the column. “I believe you have told us the truth,” he told the prisoner.

The man did not look up at him.

“Perhaps you will be free by the end of the day,” Thuong said.

“Perhaps we will all be dead by the end of the day,” the prisoner said a little bitterly.

“Would you like some of my water?” Thuong asked.

The prisoner said no, but then asked if Thuong would do him a favor: “You believe me and know what I say is true.” Thuong said yes, he would do the favor, if he could, depending on what it was.

“Would you tie my hands together?” the prisoner asked. “You see if they see me walking with you…”

“I know,” Thuong said, and ordered his hands bound; the Americans, he thought, should have asked this peasant whether he thought the area was blue or red. Perhaps they should explain that it was safe to walk free, that it was blue.

“You are not from here, are you?” the prisoner asked.

“No,” said the Lieutenant, “I come from the north.”

“I know, but you are not like the other northerners, you are nicer than them.”

“Only because you are more honest than the other southerners,” he said.

Thuong trusted the man although he did not trust southerners in general; he thought of them as dishonest, a little too lazy for their own good, a little too willing to tell you what you wanted to hear, always dependent on their women to do their work (almost, he thought, a pride in this, the best man was the one whose woman worked the hardest). He thought of northerners as being more honest, although the northerners who had come south like himself were no longer particularly honest; they had to bend enough themselves in order to survive.

Thuong was thirty-one, though, like most Vietnamese, he looked younger to foreign eyes. He was slim and his face seemed almost innocent; he had been in the Government Army too long to be innocent, eight years, and all of them either as aspirant or lieutenant. His lack of advancement was no particular reflection on his ability, indeed, those few superiors who took the time to monitor his file, such as it was with more papers missing than enclosed, were surprised at the degree of achievement and ability; having achieved this surprise, however, they did not feel obligated to increase his rank or command. Indeed the older he got, and the more papers there were in praise of him —including, dangerously American praise—the more it tended to mitigate against him; here after all was a man of ability who had not gotten ahead. Therefore, there must be something wrong, something unseen but known, something political; his superiors were in particular surprised by his father’s choice of religion. His father, having associated with foreigners in the north, did not choose to convert; he worked closely with foreigners and dutifully accepted their pay and their orders, but not their religion. This was unusual for the time; there were, after all, many Vietnamese who began to dress like the French, eat like the French, and talk like the French. His father referred to them all as the “mustache-Vietnamese” in honor of their copying French-style mustaches. Thuong had once gently asked his father about this, why he had never taken their faith, and his father had said simply that he was paid for his manual contributions, not his spiritual ones. Nevertheless, he was closely associated with foreigners and during the beginning of the French war, he had continued to work for them, as much by accident as by decision (he did not particularly like them, but he had a vague feeling that since everyone else was deserting the foreigners, it was improper for him to do it as well); one of his objections after all to the French had been the contempt they had showed toward Vietnamese people and their obvious belief that all Vietnamese were cowards, to leave now would be to confirm all the worst things the French had said. When the foreigners by their stupidity, which his father could not have been expected to have foreseen, lost the war, thereby proving to the French that all Vietnamese were not cowards and making his father’s original reason somewhat obsolete, it was decided to split up the family and come to the south, splitting up into small groups so that they wouldn’t be stopped by the local Vietminh bands.

The way had been difficult from the start and Thuong’s grandmother, who was in his charge, had nearly died from exhaustion. (Later Thuong remembered trying to find water for her, giving her all his water, and the terrible thirst that had stayed with him for days at a time. When he thought of the division of the country, he thought of his own thirst.) When they finally arrived in the south, they turned out to be among the few Buddhists who had made the trip, and were immediately placed in a camp for Catholic refugees. There they shared the difficult position of the Catholics of being unwanted immigrants in the south, without sharing either their faith or their protection.

On the basis of his father’s connections, he had managed to attend a military school, after first lingering on the waiting list for a year and a half. There he quickly discovered that he was a northerner in the south, a Buddhist among Catholics, and thus at almost any given time lacked the proper credentials. The southerners did not trust him because he was a northerner, the Catholics did not trust him because he was a Buddhist. In a country shorn of idealism and reeking of cynicism and opportunism, he was an object of suspicion. So he remained a lieutenant; as they remained suspicious of him, so he in turn became distrustful and cynical about them. He accepted the legacy of being his father’s son with the same fatalism, largely because he could think of no real alternative to it and because if it offered nothing else, it offered him a certain sense of privacy and individualism. He went along with their rules but he tried to remain himself. He envied the Communists their self-belief, their ideology, their certainty, even their cruelty; the Catholics, their convictions and connections; the Americans, their intensity and idealism; and his father, his gentleness and enduring innocence (his father, embarrassed and uneasy and unworldly, periodically would ask him if he had to be a soldier, wasn’t there something else he could do; his father knew, of course, that it paid well …); he doubted what he did and he suspected that the war would probably be lost. It was not that he wished to be on the other side—that would be easy to do, a short walk away during an operation—nor that he thought the other side more just: the Communists, after all, had killed an uncle, just as the French had stupidly managed to kill a cousin, wiping out a village (until then pro-French) as the Vietminh had planned for them to do. The Vietminh side was as cruel as the French, and lacked only the corruption of the French. He suspected that ten years of power would improve their sense of corruption (depending, he thought, on the degree of success of their system; they would need a certain amount of success to be corrupt. If their system failed, they could retain their integrity). The danger of going over, he thought, would not be that he had been fighting them all these years and had killed many of their people (they, unlike the Arvin, would have real records and they would know who he was, and who he had killed); nor that after the minimal comfort of My Tho, with its soda pop and iced beer, that life would be too rigorous. It was simply that he knew he was too cynical for the passion and commitment their life took. To gain religion in Vietnam, he thought, you must start very young; to retain it, he thought, you have to be very lucky.

So he did his best at being a lieutenant. He told Anderson, the young American, that he was twenty-five instead of thirty-one in order to avoid embarrassing the young American; Anderson had been surprised, he had thought Thuong much younger. Thuong took a certain limited pride in what he did; more, almost in what he did not do, in that he did not play the game of promotion and did not attach himself like a barnacle to his superior officers, did not call in prolonged artillery barrages on villages before the assault. But the dominant feature of his life remained his fatalism. As his father had somehow made these fatal flaws, deciding at one strange moment to keep a false sense of integrity (false, thought Thuong, because both he and his father had made so many other demeaning decisions and accepted so much other fraud during their lifetimes), Thuong had continued relentlessly and recklessly down the same deserted path: there had been, after all, chances to convert. Others did; it had been suggested to him. There were many new Catholics in his class at the Academy, and now several were captains, and one was a major; but there was for him in conversion a sense of surrender, he had admired the Catholics when they were the minority in the north, but now that they had come to the south they had changed. What had struck him as quiet courage, now often seemed to him to be arrogance, and the converts were inevitably the worst.

So he continued his own way: he did not desert because it would hurt his parents (and also because it would make no difference to him) and so his life had made him a very old lieutenant. The particular reward that he now enjoyed for his fatalism was Captain Dang. The Captain was a year younger than Thuong and had been in the army for a shorter time, and was soon to be a major, according to Dang himself. He was well connected in Saigon and was aware of this; he visited Saigon frequently, and he often referred to the dinners and parties he had just attended. He frequently praised Thuong (in front of Thuong, implying that he had also praised Thuong in those same great halls); he talked of promotion for Thuong, something, Thuong was virtually sure, if it ever came, would come in spite of Dang. Dang did not know the name of anyone in the unit below the rank of corporal; he cheated on the ranks, regularly turning in more men than he actually had, failing to report losses (the advantage being that he was not reprimanded for losing men, and at the same time continued to draw their pay. The result was that the company which should have been understrength by ten men was usually understrength about two dozen, and the pressure on the men was even greater than it should have been). Thuong had compensated for this in part by commandeering an extra light machine gun from a friend in another company: the company had lost it, then captured it back in a long battle with the Vietcong battalion. Since it had already been reported lost, it was surplus on the rolls and Thuong had been owed a major favor by his friend—he had lent them three men during a key inspection. Thuong was careful to pay as little attention as possible to Dang’s corruption; Dang, indeed, was convenient for Thuong. He fitted Thuong’s own view of what an officer was, what the system was, and made his own lack of promotion easier to bear; it would have been more bitter were Dang a real soldier. But for two years and a half now, he had despised Dang over one incident. It was a time just before the American helicopters had arrived with their remarkable ability to bring in reinforcement, and there was still a terrible isolation to battle: you were hit and you stayed there alone and fought it out. There had been an ambush, a brief and bitter one, and Thuong at first had been paralyzed like everyone else, sure that he was going to die there; but he had in those first minutes seen something he would never forgive and never forget (particularly since when he saw it, he expected it to be one of the last things he ever saw): Dang taking off his officer’s pips. If you are going to wear the pips in the great halls of Saigon, he thought, you must wear them in the U Minh forest.

 

If I Die in a Combat Zone

TIM O’BRIEN

1973

ARRIVAL

First there is some mist. Then, when the plane begins its descent, there are pale gray mountains. The plane slides down, and the mountains darken and take on a sinister cragginess. You see the outlines of crevices, and you consider whether, of all the places opening up below, you might finally walk to that spot and die. In the far distance are green patches, the sea is below, a stretch of sand winds along the coast. Two hundred men draw their breath. No one looks at the others. You feel dread. But it is senseless to let it go too far, so you joke: there are only 365 days to go. The stewardess wishes you luck over the loudspeaker. At the door she gives out some kisses, mainly to the extroverts.

From Cam Ranh Bay another plane takes you to Chu Lai, a big base to the south of Danang, headquarters for the Americal Division. You spend a week there, in a place called the Combat Center. It’s a resortlike place, tucked in alongside the South China Sea, complete with sand and native girls and a miniature golf course and floor shows with every variety of the grinding female pelvis. There beside the sea you get your now-or-never training. You pitch hand grenades, practice walking through mine fields, learn to use a minesweeper. Mostly, though, you wonder about dying. You wonder how it feels, what it looks like inside you. Sometimes you stop, and your body tingles. You feel your blood and nerves working. At night you sit on the beach and watch fire fights off where the war is being fought. There are movies at night, and a place to buy beer. Carefully, you mark six days off your pocket calendar; you start a journal, vaguely hoping it will never be read.

Arriving in Vietnam as a foot soldier is akin to arriving at boot camp as a recruit. Things are new, and you ascribe evil to the simplest physical objects around you: you see red in the sand, swarms of angels and avatars in the sky, pity in the eyes of the chaplain, concealed anger in the eyes of the girls who sell you Coke. You are not sure how to conduct yourself—whether to show fear, to live secretly with it, to show resignation or disgust. You wish it were all over. You begin the countdown. You take the inky, mildew smell of Vietnam into your lungs.

After a week at the Combat Center, a truck took six of us down Highway One to a hill called LZ Gator.

A sergeant welcomed us, staring at us like he was buying meat, and he explained that LZ Gator was headquarters for the Fourth Battalion, Twentieth Infantry, and that the place was our new home.

“I don’t want you guys getting too used to Gator,” he said. “You won’t be here long. You’re gonna fill out some forms in a few minutes, then we’ll get you all assigned to rifle companies, then you’re going out to the boonies. Got it? Just like learning to swim. We just toss you in and let you hoof it and eat some C rations and get a little action under your belts. It’s better that way than sitting around worrying about it.

“Okay, that’s enough bullshit. Just don’t get no illusions.” He softened his voice a trifle. “Of course, don’t get too scared. We lose some men, sure, but it ain’t near as bad as ’66, believe me, I was in the Nam in ’66, an’ it was bad shit then, getting our butts kicked around. And this area—you guys lucked out a little, there’s worse places in the Nam. We got mines, that’s the big thing here, plenty of ’em. But this ain’t the delta, we ain’t got many NVA, so you’re lucky. We got some mines and local VC, that’s it. Anyhow, enough bullshit, like I say, it ain’t all that bad. Okay, we got some personnel cards here, so fill ’em out, and we’ll chow you down.”

Then the battalion Re-Up NCO came along. “I seen some action. I got me two purple hearts, so listen up good. I’m not saying you’re gonna get zapped out there. I made it. But you’re gonna come motherfuckin’ close, Jesus, you’re gonna hear bullets tickling your asshole. And sure as I’m standing here, one or two of you men are gonna get your legs blown off. Or killed. One or two of you, it’s gotta happen.”

He paused and stared around like a salesman, from man to man, letting it sink in. “I’m just telling you the facts of life, I’m not trying to scare shit out of you. But you better sure as hell be scared, it’s gotta happen. One or two of you men, your ass is grass.

“So—what can you do about it? Well, like Sarge says, you can be careful, you can watch for the mines and all that, and, who knows, you might come out looking like a rose. But careful guys get killed too. So what can you do about it then? Nothing. Except you can re-up.”

The men looked at the ground and shuffled around grinning. “Sure, sure—I know. Nobody likes to re-up. But just think about it a second. Just say you do it—you take your burst of three years, starting today; three more years of army life. Then what? Well, I’ll tell you what, it’ll save your ass; that’s what, it’ll save your ass. You re-up and I can get you a job in Chu Lai. I got jobs for mechanics, typists, clerks, damn near anything you want, I got it. So you get your nice, safe rear job. You get some on-the-job training, the works. You get a skill. You sleep in a bed. Hell, you laugh, but you sleep in the goddamn monsoons for two months on end, you try that sometime, and you won’t be laughing. So. You lose a little time to Uncle Sam. Big deal. You save your ass. So, I got my desk inside. If you come in and sign the papers—it’ll take ten minutes—and I’ll have you on the first truck going back to Chu Lai, no shit. Anybody game?” No one budged, and he shrugged and went down to the mess hall.

LZ Gator seemed a safe place to be. You could see pieces of the ocean on clear days. A little village called Nuoc Man was at the foot of the hill, filled with pleasant, smiling people, places to have your laundry done, a whorehouse. Except when on perimeter guard at night, everyone went about the fire base with unloaded weapons. The atmosphere was dull and hot, but there were movies and floor shows and sheds-ful of beer.

I was assigned to Alpha Company.

“Shit, you poor sonofabitch,” the mail clerk said, grinning. “Shit. How many days you got left in Nam? 358, right? 357? Shit. You poor mother. I got twenty-three days left, twenty-three days, and I’m sorry but I’m gone! Gone! I’m so short I need a step ladder to hand out mail. What’s your name?”

The mail clerk shook hands with me. “Well, at least you’re a lucky sonofabitch. Irish guys never get wasted, not in Alpha. Blacks and spics get wasted, but you micks make it every goddamn time. Hell, I’m black as the colonel’s shoe polish, so you can bet your ass I’m not safe till that ol’ freedom bird lands me back in Seattle. Twenty-three days, you poor mother.”

He took me to the first sergeant. The first sergeant said to forget all the bullshit about going straight out to the field. He lounged in front of a fan, dressed in his underwear (dyed green, apparently to camouflage him from some incredibly sneaky VC), and he waved a beer at me. “Shit, O’Brien, take it easy. Alpha’s a good square-shooting company, so don’t sweat it. Keep your nose clean and I’ll just keep you here on Gator till the company comes back for a break. No sense sending you out there now, they’re coming in to Gator day after tomorrow.” He curled his toe around a cord and pulled the fan closer. “Go see a movie tonight, get a beer or something.”

He assigned me to the third platoon and hollered at the supply sergeant to issue me some gear. The supply sergeant hollered back for him to go to hell, and they laughed, and I got a rifle and ammunition and a helmet, camouflage cover, poncho, poncho liner, back pack, clean clothes, and a box of cigarettes and candy. Then it got dark, and I watched Elvira Madigan and her friend romp through all the colors, get hungry, get desperate, and stupidly—so stupidly that you could only pity their need for common sense—end their lives. The guy, Elvira’s lover, was a deserter. You had the impression he deserted for an ideal of love and butterflies, balmy days and the simple life, and that when he saw he couldn’t have it, not even with blond and blue-eyed Elvira, he decided he could never have it. But, Jesus, to kill because of hunger, for fear to hold a menial job. Disgusted, I went off to an empty barracks and pushed some M-16 ammo and hand grenades off my cot and went to sleep.

In two days Alpha Company came to LZ Gator. They were dirty, loud, coarse, intent on getting drunk, happy, curt, and not interested in saying much to me. They drank through the afternoon and into the night. There was a fight that ended in more beer, they smoked some dope, they started sleeping or passed out around midnight.

At one or two in the morning—at first I thought I was dreaming, then I thought it was nothing serious—explosions popped somewhere outside the barracks. The first sergeant came through the barracks with a flashlight. “Jesus,” he hollered. “Get the hell out of here! We’re being hit! Wake up!”

I scrambled for a helmet for my head. For an armored vest. For my boots, for my rifle, for my ammo.

It was pitch dark. The explosions continued to pop; it seemed a long distance away.

I went outside. The base was lit up by flares, and the mortar pits were firing rounds out into the paddies. I hid behind a metal shed they kept the beer in.

No one else came out of the barracks. I waited, and finally one man ambled out, holding a beer. Then another man, holding a beer.

They sat on some sandbags in their underwear, drinking the beer and laughing, pointing out at the paddies and watching our mortar rounds land.

Two or three more men came out in five minutes; then the first sergeant started shouting. In another five minutes some of the men were finally outside, sitting on the sandbags.

Enemy rounds crashed in. The earth split. Most of Alpha Company slept.

A lieutenant came by. He told the men to get their gear together, but no one moved, and he walked away. Then some of the men spotted the flash of an enemy mortar tube.

They set up a machine gun and fired out at it, over the heads of everyone in the fire base.

In seconds the enemy tube flashed again. The wind whistled, and the round dug into a road twenty feet from my beer shed. Shrapnel slammed into the beer shed. I hugged the Bud and Black Label, panting, no thoughts.

The men hollered that Charlie was zeroing in on our machine gun, and everyone scattered, and the next round slammed down even closer.

The lieutenant hurried back. He argued with a platoon sergeant, but this time the lieutenant was firm. He ordered us to double-time out to the perimeter. Muttering about how the company needed a rest and that this had turned into one hell of a rest and that they’d rather be out in the boonies, the men put on their helmets and took up their rifles and followed the lieutenant past the mess hall and out to the perimeter.

Three of the men refused and went into the barracks and went to sleep.

Out on the perimeter, there were two dead GI’s. Fifty-caliber machine guns fired out into the paddies and the sky was filled with flares. Two or three of our men, forgetting about the war, went off to chase parachutes blowing around the bunkers. The chutes came from the flares, and they made good souvenirs.

In the morning the first sergeant roused us out of bed, and we swept the fire base for bodies. Eight dead VC were lying about. One was crouched beside a roll of barbed wire, the top of his head resting on the ground like he was ready to do a somersault. A squad of men was detailed to throw the corpses into a truck. They wore gloves and didn’t like the job, but they joked. The rest of us walked into the rice paddy and followed a tracker dog out toward the VC mortar positions. From there the dog took us into a village, but there was nothing to see but some children and women. We walked around until noon. Then the lieutenant turned us around, and we were back at LZ Gator in time for chow.

“Those poor motherfuckin’ dinks,” the Kid said while we were filling sandbags in the afternoon. “They should know better than to test Alpha Company. They just know, they ought to know anyhow, it’s like tryin’ to attack the Pentagon! Old Alpha comes in, an’ there ain’t a chance in hell for ’em, they oughta know that, for Christ’s sake. Eight to two, they lost six more than we did.” The Kid was only eighteen, but everyone said to look out for him, he was the best damn shot in the battalion with an M-79.

“Actually,” the Kid said, “those two guys weren’t even from Alpha. The two dead GI’s. They were with Charlie Company or something. I don’t know. Stupid dinks should know better.” He flashed a buck-toothed smile and jerked his eyebrows up and down and winked.

Wolf said: “Look, FNG, I don’t want to scare you—nobody’s trying to scare you—but that stuff last night wasn’t shit! Last night was a lark. Wait’ll you see some really bad shit. That was a picnic last night. I almost slept through it.” I wondered what an FNG was. No one told me until I asked.

“You bullshitter, Wolf. It’s never any fun.” The Kid heaved a shovelful of sand at Wolf’s feet. “Except for me maybe. I’m charmed, nothing’ll get me. Ol’ Buddy Wolf’s a good bullshitter, he’ll bullshit you till you think he knows his ass from his elbow.”

“Okay, FNG, don’t listen to me, ask Buddy Barker. Buddy Barker, you tell him last night was a lark. Right? We got mortars and wire and bunkers and arty and, shit, what the hell else you want? You want a damn H bomb?”

“Good idea,” Kid said.

But Buddy Barker agreed it had been a lark. He filled a sandbag and threw it onto a truck and sat down and read a comic. Buddy Wolf filled two more bags and sat down with Buddy Barker and called him a lazy bastard. While Kid and I filled more bags, Wolf and Barker read comics and played a game called “Name the Gang.” Wolf named a rock song and Barker named the group who made it big. Wolf won 10 to 2.1 asked the Kid how many Alpha men had been killed lately, and the Kid shrugged and said a couple. So I asked how many had been wounded, and without looking up, he said a few. I asked how bad the AO was, how soon you could land a rear job, if the platoon leader were gung-ho, if Kid had ever been wounded, and the Kid just grinned and gave flippant, smiling, say-nothing answers. He said it was best not to worry.

 

Obscenities

MICHAEL CASEY

1972

 

To Sergeant Rock

Gentlemen
One year over there
An you’ll age ten
Am I exaggeratin, Sergeant Rock?
You ask Sergeant Rock
If I’m exaggeratin
Sergeant Rock was in the army
Since the day he was born
He was in the war of the babies

 

A Bummer

We were going single file
Through his rice paddies
And the farmer
Started hitting the lead track
With a rake
He wouldn’t stop
The TC went to talk to him
And the farmer
Tried to hit him too
So the tracks went sideways
Side by side
Through the guy’s fields
Instead of single file
Hard On, Proud Mary
Bummer, Wallace, Rosemary’s Baby
The Rutgers Road Runner
And
Go Get Em-Done Got Em
Went side by side
Through the fields
    If you have a farm in Vietnam
And a house in hell
Sell the farm
And go home

track: tracked vehicle
TC: track commander

 

For the Old Man

The old man was mumbling
And Delbert was shouting at him
Im! Im! Im!
Until Booboo told Delbert
To shut the fuck up
The old man was skinny
The old man had looked young
With the sand bag
Over his head
Without the bag
The man was old
There was a bump
The size of a grapefruit
On his head
When the bag was taken off
The man
Clasped his hands
In front of him
And bowed to us
Each in turn
To Booboo, Delbert, and me
He kept it up too
He wouldn’t stop
His whole body shaking
Shivering with fright
And somehow
With his hands

Clasped before him
It seemed as if
He was praying to us
It made all of us
Americans
Feel strange

im: silence

 

Explanation

My friend with me is National Policeman Hieu
Of the National Police Field Force
Hieu shakes his head and says something
In Vietnamese meaning     of very poor quality
My friend is impressed
Not favorably, I think,
As the Marine Captain
Explains the key chain
On which is a bit of jawbone
With three little teeth
He points to it
“VC” he says

“I could’ve guessed”
I says, “that a Communist
Would have but three teeth
Three is a number
I never liked”

And the captain
Explains to me
That the thing
Was part of

A larger bone
Containing more
Than three teeth

 

The LZ Gator Body Collector

See
Her back is arched
Like something’s under it
That’s why I thought
It was booby trapped
But it’s not
It just must have been
Over this rock here
And somebody moved it
After corpus morta stiffened it
I didn’t know it was
A woman at first
I couldn’t tell
But then I grabbed
Down there
It’s a woman or was
It’s all right
I didn’t mind
I had gloves on then

 

Learning

I like learning useless things Like Latin
I really enjoyed Latin
Caesar and the Gallic Wars
Enjoyed his fighting
The Helvetians and Germans
And Gauls
I enjoyed Vietnamese too
The language
Its five intonations
Its no conjugations
A good language to learn
Vietnam is divided in
Three parts too
It makes me wonder
Who will write their book

 

Sticks and Bones

DAVID RABE

1969

[FROM ACT ONE:]

RICK. Somebody knockin’.

OZZIE. Knockin’?

RICK. The door, Dad.

OZZIE. Oh.

RICK. You want me to get it?

OZZIE. No, no. It’s just so late. (He moves for the door.)

RICK. That’s all right.

OZZIE. Sure.
He opens the door just a crack, as if to stick his head around. But the door is thrust open and a man enters abruptly. He is black or of Spanish descent, and is dressed in the uniform of a sergeant major and wearing many campaign ribbons.

SGT. MAJOR. Excuse me. Listen to me. I’d like to speak to the father here. I’d like to know who … is the father? Could … you tell me the address?

OZZIE. May I ask who’s asking?

SGT. MAJOR. I am. I’m asking. What’s the address of this house?

OZZIE. But I mean, who is it that wants to know?

SGT. MAJOR. We called; we spoke. Is this seven-seventeen Dunbar?

OZZIE. Yes.

SGT. MAJOR. What’s wrong with you?

OZZIE. Don’t you worry about me.

SGT. MAJOR. I have your son.

OZZIE. What?

SGT. MAJOR. Your son.

OZZIE. No.

SGT. MAJOR. But he is. I have papers, pictures, prints. I know your blood and his. This is the right address. Please. Excuse me. (He pivots, reaches out into the dark.) I am very busy. I have your father, David.
He draws David in—a tall, thin boy, blond and, in the shadows, wearing sunglasses and a uniform of dress greens. In his right hand is a long, white, red-tipped cane. He moves, probing the air, as the sergeant major moves him past Ozzie toward the couch, where he will sit the boy down like a parcel.

OZZIE. Dave? …

SGT. MAJOR. He’s blind.

OZZIE. What?

SGT. MAJOR. Blind.

OZZIE. I don’t … understand.

SGT. MAJOR. We’re very sorry.

OZZIE, realizing. Ohhhhhh. Yes. Ohhhhh. I see … sure. I mean, we didn’t know. Nobody said it. I mean, sure, Dave, sure; it’s all right—don’t you worry. Rick’s here, too, Dave—Rick, your brother, tell him hello.

RICK. Hi, Dave.

DAVID, worried. You said … “father.”

OZZIE. Well … there’s two of us, Dave; two.

DAVID. Sergeant, you said “home.” I don’t think so.

OZZIE. Dave, sure.

DAVID. It doesn’t feel right.

OZZIE. But it is, Dave —me and Rick—Dad and Rick. Harriet! (Calling up the stairs) Harriet!

DAVID. Let me touch their faces.… I can’t see. (Rising, his fear increasing) Let me put my fingers on their faces.

OZZIE, hurt, startled. What? Do what?

SGT. MAJOR. Will that be all right if he does that?

OZZIE. Sure.… Sure.… Fine.

SGT. MAJOR, helping David to Ozzie. It will take him time.

OZZIE. That’s normal and to be expected. I’m not surprised. Not at all. We figured on this. Sure, we did. Didn’t we, Rick?

RICK, occupied with his camera, an Instamatic. I wanna take some pictures, okay? How are you, Dave?

DAVID. What room is this?

OZZIE. Middle room, Dave. TV room. TV’s in—

HARRIET, on the stairs. David! … Oh, David! … David …
And Ozzie, leaving David, hurries toward the stairs and looks up at her as she falters, stops, stares. Rick, moving near, snaps a picture of her.

OZZIE. Harriet … don’t be upset … They say … Harriet, Harriet, … he can’t see! … Harriet … they say—he—can’t … see. That man.

HARRIET, standing very still. Can’t see? What do you mean?

SGT. MAJOR. He’s blind.

HARRIET. No. Who says? No, no.

OZZIE. Look at him. He looks so old. But it’s nothing, Harriet, I’m sure.

SGT. MAJOR. I hope you people understand.

OZZIE. It’s probably just how he’s tired from his long trip.

HARRIET, moving toward him. Oh, you’re home now, David.

SGT. MAJOR, with a large sheet of paper waving in his hand. Who’s gonna sign this for me, Mister? It’s a shipping receipt. I got to have somebody’s signature to show you got him. I got to have somebody’s name on the paper.

OZZIE. Let me. All right?

SGT. MAJOR. just here and here, you see? Your name or mark three times.
As they move toward a table and away from Harriet, who is near David.

OZZIE. Fine, listen, would you like some refreshments?

SGT. MAJOR. No.

OZZIE. I mean while I do this. Cake and coffee. Of course, you do.

SGT. MAJOR. No

OZZIE. Sure.

SGT. MAJOR. No, I haven’t time. I’ve got to get going. I’ve got trucks out there backed up for blocks. Other boys. I got to get on to Chicago, and some of them to Denver and Cleveland, Reno, New Orleans, Boston, Trenton, Watts, Atlanta. And when I get back they’ll be layin’ all over the grass; layin’ there in pieces all over the grass, their backs been broken, their brains jellied, their insides turned into garbage. One-legged boys and no-legged boys. I’m due in Harlem; I got to get to the Bronx and Queens, Cincinnati, Saint Louis, Reading. I don’t have time for coffee. I got deliveries to make all across this country.

DAVID, with Harriet, his hands on her face, a kind of realization. Nooooooo … Sergeant … nooo; there’s something wrong; it all feels wrong. Where are you? Are you here? I don’t know these people!

SGT. MAJOR. That’s natural, Soldier; it’s natural for you to feel that way.

DAVID. Nooooo.

HARRIET, attempting to guide him back to a chair. David, just sit, be still.

DAVID. Don’t you hear me?

OZZIE. Harriet, calm him.

DAVID. The air is wrong; the smells and sounds, the wind.

HARRIET. David, please, please. What is it? Be still. Please …

DAVID. Goddamn you, Sergeant, I am lonely here! I am lonely!

SGT. MAJOR. I got to go. (And he pivots to leave.)

DAVID, following the sound of the sergeant major’s voice. Sergeant!

SGT. MAJOR. whirling, bellowing. You shut up. You piss-ass soldier, you shut the fuck up!

OZZIE, walking to the sergeant major, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder. Listen, let me walk you to the door. All right? I’d like to take a look at that truck of yours. All right?

SGT. MAJOR. There’s more than one.

OZZIE. Fine.

SGT. MAJOR. It’s a convoy.

OZZIE. Good.
They exit, slamming the door, and Rick, running close behind them, pops it open, leaps out He calls from off.

RICK. Sure are lots of trucks, Mom!

HARRIET, as he re-enters. Are there?

RICK. Oh, yeah. Gonna rain some more too. (And turning, he runs up the stairs.) See you in the morning. Night, Dave.

HARRIET. It’s so good to have you here again; so good to see you. You look … just …
(Ozzie has slipped back into the room behind her, he stands, looking.)
fine. You look—
(She senses Ozzie’s presence, turns, immediately, speaking.)
He bewilders you, doesn’t he?
(And Ozzie, jauntily, heads for the stairs.)
Where are you going?
(He stops; he doesn’t know. And she is happily sad now as she speaks—sad for poor Ozzie and David, they are whimsical, so childlike.)
You thought you knew what was right, all those years, teaching him sports and fighting. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? A mother knows things … a father cannot ever know them. The measles, smallpox, cuts and bruises. Never have you come upon him in the night as he lay awake and staring … praying.

OZZIE. I saw him put a knife through the skin of a cat. I saw him cut the belly open.

DAVID. Noooo.…

HARRIET, moving toward him in response. David, David …

DAVID. Ricky!
(There is a kind of accusation in this as if he were saying Ricky did the killing of the cat. He says it loudly and directly into her face.)

HARRIET. He’s gone to bed.

DAVID. I want to leave.

There is furniture around him; he is caged. He pokes with his cane.

HARRIET. What is it?

DAVID. Help me. (He crashes.)

OZZIE. Settle down! Relax.

DAVID. I want to leave! I want to leave! I want to leave. I … (And he smashes into the stairs, goes down, flails, pounding his cane.)
want to leave.

OZZIE and HARRIET. Dave! David! Davey!

DAVID.… to leave! Please.
He is on the floor, breathing. Long, long silence in which they look at him sadly, until Harriet announces the problem’s solution.

HARRIET. Ozzie, get him some medicine. Get him some Easy Sleep.

OZZIE. Good idea.

HARRIET. It’s in the medicine cabinet; a little blue bottle, little pink pills.
(And when Ozzie is gone up the stairs, there is quiet. She stands over David.)
It’ll give you the sleep you need, Dave—the sleep you remember. You’re our child and you’re home. Our good … beautiful boy. And front door bursts open. There is a small girl in the doorway, an Asian girl. She wears the Vietnamese ao dai, black slacks and white tunic slit up the sides. Slowly, she enters, carrying before her a small straw hat. Harriet is looking at the open door.

HARRIET. What an awful … wind.(She shuts the door.) Blackout. Guitar music.

A match flickers as Harriet lights a candle in the night. And the girl silently moves from before the door across the floor to the stairs, where she sits, as Harriet moves toward the stairs and Ozzie, asleep sitting up in a chair, stirs.

HARRIET. Oh! I didn’t mean to wake you. I lit a candle so I wouldn’t wake you.
(He stares at her.)
I’m sorry.

OZZIE. I wasn’t sleeping.

HARRIET. I thought you were.

OZZIE. Couldn’t. Tried. Couldn’t. Thinking. Thoughts running very fast. Trying to remember the night David … was made. Do you understand me? I don’t know why. But the feeling in me that I had to figure something out and if only I could remember that night … the mood … I would be able. You’re … shaking your head.

HARRIET. I don’t understand.

OZZIE. No.

HARRIET. Good night.

(She turns and leaves Ozzie sitting there, gazing at the dark. Arriving at David’s door, she raps softly and then opens the door. David is lying unmoving on the bed. She speaks to him.) I heard you call.

DAVID. What?

HARRIET. I heard you call.

DAVID. I didn’t.

HARRIET. Would you like a glass of warm milk?

DAVID. I was sleeping.

HARRIET, after a slight pause. How about that milk? Would you like some milk?

DAVID. I didn’t call. I was sleeping.

HARRIET. I’ll bet you’re glad you didn’t bring her back. Their skins are yellow, aren’t they?

DAVID. What?

HARRIET. You’re troubled, warm milk would help. Do you pray at all anymore? If I were to pray now, would you pray with me?

DAVID. What … do you want?

HARRIET. They eat the flesh of dogs.

DAVID. I know. I’ve seen them.

HARRIET. Pray with me; pray.

DAVID. What … do … you want?

HARRIET. Just to talk, that’s all. Just to know that you’re home and safe again. Nothing else; only that we’re all together, a family. You must be exhausted. Don’t worry; sleep. (She is backing into the hallway. In a whisper) Good night.
(She blows out the candle and is gone, moving down the hall. Meanwhile the girl is stirring, rising, climbing from the living room up toward David’s room, which she enters, moving through a wall, and David sits up.)

DAVID. Who’s there?
(As she drifts by, he waves the cane at the air.)

Zung? (He stands.) Chào, Cô Zung.
(He moves for the door, which he opens, and steps into the hall, leaving her behind him in the room.)
Zung. Chào, Cô Zung.
(And he moves off up the hallway. She follows.)
Zung! …
Blackout. Music.

[LATER IN ACT ONE:]

DAVID, changing, turning. I have some movies. I thought you … knew.

HARRIET. Well … we … do.

OZZIE. Movies?

DAVID. Yes, I took them.

RICK. I thought you wanted to sing.

OZZIE. I mean, they’re what’s planned, Dave. That’s what’s up. The projector’s all wound and ready. I don’t know what you had to get so angry for.

HARRIET. Let’s get everything ready.

OZZIE. Sure, sure. No need for all that yelling. He moves to set up the projector.

DAVID. I’ll narrate.

OZZIE. Fine, sure. What’s it about anyway?

HARRIET. Are you in it?

OZZIE. Ricky, plug it in. C’mon, c’mon.

DAVID. It’s a kind of story.

RICK. What about my guitar?

DAVID. No.

OZZIE. We oughta have some popcorn, though.

HARRIET. Oh, yes, what a dumb movie house, no popcorn, huh, Rick! Rick switches off the lights.

OZZIE. Let her rip, Dave.
(Dave turns on the projector; Ozzie is hurrying to a seat)
Ready when you are, C.B.

HARRIET. Shhhhhhh!

OZZIE, a little child playing. Let her rip, C.B. I want a new contract, C.B.
The projector runs for a moment (Note: In proscenium, a screen should be used if possible, or the film may be allowed to seem projected on the fourth wall; in three-quarter or round the screen may be necessary. If the screen is used, nothing must show upon it but a flickering of green.)

HARRIET. Ohhh, what’s the matter? It didn’t come out, there’s nothing there.

DAVID. Of course there is.

HARRIET. Noooo … It’s all funny.

DAVID. Look.

OZZIE. It’s underexposed, Dave.

DAVID, moving nearer. No. Look.

HARRIET. What?

DAVID. They hang in the trees. They hang by their wrists half-severed by the wire.

OZZIE. Pardon me, Dave?

HARRIET. I’m going to put on the lights.

DAVID. NOOOOO! LOOK! They hang in the greenish haze afflicted by insects; a woman and a man, middle aged. They do not shout or cry. He is too small. Look—he seems all bone, shame in his eyes; his wife even here come with him, skinny also as a broom and her hair is straight and black, hanging to mask her eyes. The girl, Zung, drifts into the room.

OZZIE. I don’t know what you’re doing, David; there’s nothing there.

DAVID. LOOK! (And he points.) They are all bone and pain, uncontoured and ugly but for the peculiar melon-swelling in her middle which is her pregnancy, which they do not see—look! these soldiers who have found her—as they do not see that she is not dead but only dying until saliva and blood bubble at her lips. Look … Yet … she dies. Though a doctor is called in to remove the bullet-shot baby she would have preferred … to keep since she was dying and it was dead.
(And Zung silently, drifting, departs.)
In fact, as it turned out they would have all been better off left to hang as they had been strung on the wire—he with the back of his head blown off and she, the rifle jammed exactly and deeply up into her, with a bullet fired directly into the child living there. For they ended each buried in a separate place; the husband by chance alone was returned to their village, while the wife was dumped into an alien nearby plot of dirt, while the child, too small a piece of meat, was burned. Put into fire, as the shattered legs and arms cut off of men are burned. There’s an oven. It is no ceremony. It is the disposal of garbage! …
Harriet gets to her feet, marches to the projector, pulls the plug, begins a little lecture.

HARRIET. It’s so awful the things those yellow people do to one another. Yellow people hanging yellow people. Isn’t that right? Ozzie, I told you—animals—Christ, burn them. David, don’t let it hurt you. All the things you saw. People aren’t themselves in war. I mean like that sticking that gun into that poor woman and then shooting that poor little baby, that’s not human. That’s inhuman. It’s inhuman, barbaric and uncivilized and inhuman.

DAVID. I’m thirsty.

HARRIET. For what? Tell me. Water? Or would you like some milk? How about some milk?

DAVID, shaking his head. No.

HARRIET. Or would you like some orange juice? All golden and little bits of ice.

OZZIE. Just all those words and that film with no picture and these poor people hanging somewhere—so you can bring them home like this house is a meat house—

HARRIET. Oh, Ozzie, no, it’s not that—no—he’s just young, a young boy … and he’s been through terrible, terrible things and now he’s home, with his family he loves, just trying to speak to those he loves—just—

DAVID. Yes! That’s right. Yes. What I mean is, yes, of course, that’s what I am—a young … blind man in a room … in a house in the dark, raising nothing in a gesture of no meaning toward two voices who are not speaking … of a certain … incredible … connection!
All stare. Rick leaps up, running for the stairs.

RICK. Listen, everybody, I hate to rush off like this, but I gotta. Night.

HARRIET. Good night, Rick.

OZZIE, simultaneously. Good night.
David moves toward the stairs, looking upward.

DAVID. Because I talk of certain things … don’t think I did them.

Murderers don’t even know that murder happens.

HARRIET. What are you saying? No, no. We’re a family, that’s all —we’ve had a little trouble—David, you’ve got to stop—please—no more yelling. Just be happy and home like all the others—why can’t you?

DAVID. You mean take some old man to a ditch of water, shove his head under, talk of cars and money till his feeble pawing stops, and then head on home to go in and out of doors and drive cars and sing sometimes. I left her like you wanted … where people are thin and small all their lives. (The beginning of realization) Or did … you … think it was a … place … like this? Sinks and kitchens all the world over? Is that what you believe? Water from faucets, light from wires? Trucks, telephones, TV. Ricky sings and sings, but if I were to cut his throat, he would no longer and you would miss him—you would miss his singing. We are hoboes! (And it is the first time in his life he has ever thought these things.) We make signs in the dark. You know yours. I understand my own. We share … coffee!
(There is nearly joy in this discovery: a hint of new freedom that might be liberation. And somewhere in the thrill of it he has whirled, his cane has come near to Ozzie, frightening him, though Harriet does not notice. Now David turns, moving for the stairs, thinking.)
I’m going up to bed … now … I’m very … tired.

OZZIE. Well … you have a good sleep, Son.…

DAVID. Yes, I think I’ll sleep in.

OZZIE. You do as you please.…

DAVID. Good night.

HARRIET. Good night.

OZZIE. Good night.

HARRIET. Good night. (Slight pause.) You get a good rest. (Silence.) Try …

[FROM ACT TWO:]

David descends with Zung behind him. Calmly he speaks, growing slowly happy.

DAVID. Do you know how north of here, on farms, gentle loving dogs are raised, while in the forests, other dogs run wild? And upon occasion, one of those that’s wild is captured and put in among the others that are tame, bringing with it the memory of when they had all been wild—the dark and the terror—that had made them wolves. Don’t you hear them?
And there is a rumbling.

RICK. What? Hear what?
It is windlike, the rumbling of many trucks.

DAVID. Don’t you hear the trucks? They’re all over town, lined up from the center of town into the country. Don’t you hear? They’ve stopped bringing back the blind. They’re bringing back the dead now. The convoy’s broken up. There’s no control … they’re walking from house to house, through the shrubbery, under the trees, carrying one of the dead in a bright blue rubber bag for which they have no papers, no name or manner. No one knows whose it is. They’re at the Jensens’ now. Now Al Jensen’s at the door, all his kids behind him trying to peek. Al looks for a long, long time into the open bag before he shakes his head. They zipper shut the bag and turn away. They’ve been to the Mayers’, the Kellys’, the Irwins’ and the Kresses’. They’ll be here soon.

OZZIE. Nooo.

DAVID. And Dad’s going to let them in. We’re going to let them in.

HARRIET. What’s he saying?

DAVID. He’s going to knock.

OZZIE. I don’t know.

DAVID. Yes. Yes.

A knocking sound. Is it David knocking with his fist against the door or table?

OZZIE. Nooooo.

RICK. Mom, he’s driving Dad crazy.

Knocking loud: it seems to be at the front door.

OZZIE. David, will I die?

He moves toward the door.

HARRIET. Who do you suppose it could be so late?

RICK, intercepting Ozzie, blocking the way to the door. I don’t think you should just go opening the door to anybody this time of the night, there’s no telling who it might be.

DAVID. We know who it is.

OZZIE. Oh, David, why can’t you wait? Why can’t you rest? But David is the father now, and he will explain. He loves them all.

DAVID. Look at her. See her, Dad. Tell her to go to the door. Tell her yes, it’s your house, you want her to open the door and let them in. Tell her yes, the one with no name is ours. We’ll put it in that chair. We can bring them all here. I want them all here, all the trucks and bodies. There’s room. (Handing Rick the guitar) Ricky can sing. We’ll stack them along the walls …

OZZIE. Nooo …

DAVID. Pile them over the floor …

OZZIE. No, no …

DAVID. They will become the floor and they will become the walls, the chairs. We’ll sit in them; sleep. We will call them “home.” We will give them as gifts—call them “ring” and “pot” and “cup.” No, no; it’s not a thing to fear.… We will notice them no more than all the others.

He is gentle, happy, consoling to them.

OZZIE. What others? There are no others. Oh … please die. Oh, wait …

(And he scurries to the TV where it sits beneath the stairs.)

I’ll get it fixed. I’ll fix it. Who needs to hear it? We’ll watch it.

(Wildly turning TV channels.) I flick my rotten life. Oh, there’s a good one. Look at that one. Ohhh, isn’t that a good one? That’s the best one. That’s the best one.

DAVID. They will call it madness. We will call it seeing. Calmly he lifts Ozzie.

OZZIE. I don’t want to disappear.

DAVID. Let her take you to the door. We will be runners. You will have eyes.

OZZIE. I will be blind. I will disappear. Knocking is heard again. Again.

DAVID. You stand and she stands. “Let her go,” you say; “she is garbage and filth and you must get her back if you wish to live. She is sickness, I must cherish her.” Old voices you have trusted all your life as if they were your own, speaking always friendly. “She’s all of everything impossible made possible!”

OZZIE. Ricky … noooo! …

DAVID. Don’t call to Ricky. You love her. You will embrace her, see her and—

OZZIE. He has no right to do this to me.

DAVID. Don’t call to Ricky!

OZZIE, suddenly raging, rushing at David, pushing him. You have no right to do this.

RICK. Nooooooo!

(Savagely he smashes his guitar down upon David, who crumples.) Let Dad alone. Let him alone. He’s sick of you. What the hell’s the matter with you? He doesn’t wanna talk anymore about all the stupid stuff you talk. He wants to talk about cake and cookies and cars and coffee. He’s sick a you and he wants you to shut up. We hate you, goddamn you.

Silence: David lies still.

ZUNG. Chào ông!
(Ozzie pivots, looks at her.)
Chào ông! Hom nay ông manh không?

OZZIE. Oh, what is it that you want? I’m tired. I mean it. Forgive me. I’m sick of the sight of you, squatting all the time. In filth like animals, talking gibberish, your breath sick with rot.… And yet you look at me with those sad pleading eyes as if there is some real thing that can come between us when you’re not even here. You are deceit.
(His hands, rising, have driven to her throat. The fingers close.)

I’m not David. I’m not silly and soft … little David. The sight of you sickens me. YOU HEAR ME, DAVID? Believe me. I am speaking my honest true feelings. I spit on you, the both of you; I piss on you and your eyes and pain. Flesh is lies. You are garbage and filth. You are darkness. I cast you down. Deceit. Animal. Dirty animal.
And he is over her. They are sprawled on the ground. Silence as no one moves. She lies like a rag beneath him.

RICK. I saw this really funny movie last night. This really … funny, funny movie about this young couple and they were going to get a divorce but they didn’t. It was really funny.
Ozzie is hiding the girl. In a proscenium production, he can drag her beneath the couch; in three-quarters, he covers her with a blanket brought to him by Harriet which matches the rug.

HARRIET. What’s that? What’s that?

RICK. This movie I saw.

HARRIET. Anybody want to go for groceries? We need Kleenex, sugar, milk.

RICK. What a really funny movie.

OZZIE. I’ll go; I’ll go.

HARRIET. Good. Good.

OZZIE. I think I saw it on TV.
They are cleaning up the house now, putting the chairs back in order, dumping all of Ozzie’s leaflets in the waste can.

HARRIET. Did you enjoy it, Rick?

RICK. Oh, yeh. I loved it.

OZZIE. I laughed so much I almost got sick. It was really good. I laughed.

RICK. I bet it was; I bet you did.

OZZIE. Oh, I did.

    Even David helps with the cleaning: he gets himself off the floor and is seated in a chair.

HARRIET. How are you feeling, Ricky?

RICK. Fine.

HARRIET. Good.

RICK. How do you feel?

HARRIET. Oh, I’m all right. I feel fine.

OZZIE. Me, too. I feel fine, too. What day is it, anyway? Monday?

HARRIET. Wednesday.

RICK. Tuesday, Mom.
Now all three are seated on the couch.

OZZIE. I thought it was Monday.

RICK. Oh, no.

HARRIET. No, no. You’re home now, David.…

RICK, moving to David, who sits alone in a chair. Hey, Dave, listen, will you. I mean I know it’s not my place to speak out and give advice and everything because I’m the youngest, but I just gotta say my honest true feelings and I’d kill myself if I were you, Dave. You’re in too much misery. I’d cut my wrists. Honestly speaking, brother to brother, you should have done it long ago. (David is looking about.)

DAVID. What?

RICK. Nooo. She’s never been here. You just thought so. You decided not to bring her, Dave, remember? You decided, all things considered that you preferred to come back without her. Too much risk and inconvenience … you decided. Isn’t that right? Sure. You know it is. You’ve always known. (Silence. Harriet moves to look out the front door.) Do you want to use my razor, Dave? (Pulling, a straight razor from his pocket) I have one right here and you can use it if you want. (David seems to be looking at the razor.) Just take it if you want it, Dave.

HARRIET. Go ahead, David. The front yard’s empty. You don’t have to be afraid. The streets, too … still and empty.

RICK. It doesn’t hurt like you think it will. Go ahead; just take it, Dave.

OZZIE. You might as well.

RICK. That’s right.

OZZIE. You’ll feel better.

RICK. I’ll help you now, Dave, okay?

HARRIET. I’ll go get some pans and towels.

RICK, moving about David, patting him, buddying him. Oh, you’re so confused, you don’t know what to do. It’s just a good thing I got this razor, Boy, that’s all I gotta say. You’re so confused. You see, Dave, where you’re wrong is your point of view, it’s silly. It’s just really comical because you think people are valuable or something and, given a chance like you were to mess with ’em, to take a young girl like that and turn her into a whore, you shouldn’t, when of course you should or at least might … on whim … you see? I mean, you’re all backwards, Dave—you’re upside down. You don’t know how to go easy and play—I bet you didn’t have any fun the whole time you were over there—no fun at all—and it was there. I got this buddy Gerry, he was there, and he used to throw bags of cement at ’em from off the back a his truck. They’d go whizzin’ through those villages, throwin’ off these bags a cement. You could kill people, he says, you hit ’em right. Especially the kids. There was this once they knocked this ole man off his bicycle—fifty pounds a dry cement—and then the back a the truck got his legs. It was hysterical—can’t you just see that, Dave? Him layin’ there howlin’, all the guys in the truck bowin’ and wavin’ and tippin’ their hats. What a goddamn funny story, huh?

    Harriet has brought silver pans and towels with roosters on them. The towels cover the arms of the chair and David’s lap. The pans will catch the blood. All has been neatly placed. David, with Ricky’s help, cuts one wrist, and then the other, as they talk.

DAVID. I wanted … to kill you … all of you.

RICK. I know, I know; but you were hurt; too weak.

DAVID. I wanted for you to need what I had and I wouldn’t give it.

HARRIET. That’s not possible.

OZZIE. Nooooo.

DAVID. I wanted to get you. Like poor bug-eyed fish flung up from the brief water to the lasting dirt, I would get you.

HARRIET. David, no, no, you didn’t want that.

OZZIE. No, no.

RICK. I don’t even know why you’d think you did.

OZZIE. We kill you is what happens.

RICK. That’s right.

OZZIE. And then, of course, we die, too … Later on, I mean. And nothing stops it. Not words … or walls … or even guitars.

RICK. Sure.

OZZIE. That’s what happens.

HARRIET. It isn’t too bad, is it?

RICK. How bad is it?

OZZIE. He’s getting weaker.

HARRIET. And in a little, it’ll all be over. You’ll feel so grand. No more funny talk.

RICK. You can shower; put on clean clothes. I’ve got deodorant you can borrow. After Roses, Dave. The scent of a thousand roses. He is preparing to take a picture—crouching, aiming,

HARRIET. Take off your glasses, David.

OZZIE. Do as you’re told.

RICK (as David’s hands are rising toward the glasses to remove them). I bet when you were away there was only plain water to wash in, huh? You prob’ly hadda wash in the rain.
(He takes the picture; there is a flash. A slide appears on the screen: A close-up of David, nothing visible but his face. It is the slide that, appearing as the start of the play, was referred to as “somebody sick.” Now it hovers, stricken, sightless, revealed.) Mom, I like David like this.

HARRIET. He’s happier.

OZZIE. We’re all happier.

RICK. Too bad he’s gonna die.

OZZIE. No, no, he’s not gonna die, Rick. He’s only gonna nearly die. Only nearly.

RICK. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh.

HARRIET. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

And Rick, sitting, begins to play his guitar for David. The music is alive and fast. It has a rhythm, a drive of happiness that is contagious. The lights slowly fade.

 

From

Demilitarized Zones

JAN BARRY AND
W. D. EHRHART, EDITORS

1976

 

Imagine
W. D. EHRHART

The conversation turned to Vietnam.
He’d been there, and they asked him
what it had been like: had he been in battle?
Had he ever been afraid?

Patiently, he tried to answer
questions he had tried to answer
many times before.

They listened, and they strained
to visualize the words:
newsreels and photographs, books
and Wilfred Owen tumbled
through their minds. Pulses quickened.

They didn’t notice, as he talked,
his eyes, as he talked,
his eyes begin to focus
through the wall, at nothing,
or at something deep inside.

When he finished speaking,
someone asked him
had he ever killed?

 

War Stories
PERRY OLDHAM

Have you heard Howard’s tape?
You won’t believe it:
He recorded the last mortar attack.
The folks at home have never heard a real
Mortar attack
And he wants to let them know
Exactly
What it’s like.

Every night he pops popcorn
And drinks Dr. Pepper
And narrates the tape:

Ka-blooie!
Thirty-seven rounds of eighty millimeter—
You can count them if you slow down the tape.
There’s an AK.
Those are hand grenades.
Here’s where the Cobras come in
And whomp their ass.

 

D. C. BERRY

A poem ought to be a salt lick
rather than sugar candy.
A preservative.
Something to make a tongue
tough enough to taste
the full flavor
of beauty and grief.

I would go to the dark
places where the
animals go;

they know
where the salt licks are
far
away from the barbed glitters of neon,
far
away from the bottles of booze
stacked like loaded rifles,
far
away into the gray-bone and
bleached silence.

I would go there now
before the slow explosion of Spring.
Already my tongue bleeds from
the yellow slash of Forsythia
that must be blooming
where you are.

 

In Celebration of Spring 1976

JOHN BALABAN

Our Asian war is over, squandered, spent.
Our elders who tried to mortgage lies
are disgraced, or dead, and already
the brokers are picking their pockets
for the keys and the credit cards.

In delta swamp in a united Vietnam,
a Marine with a bullfrog for a face
rots in equatorial heat. An eel
slides through the cage of his bared ribs.
At night, on the still battlefields, ghosts,
like patches of fog, lurk into villages
to maunder on doorsills of cratered homes,
while all across the U.S.A. in this 200th year
of revolution and the rights of man,
the wounded walk about and wonder where to go.

And today, in the simmer of lyric sunlight,
a chrysalis pulses in its mushy cocoon
under the bark on a gnarled root of an elm.
In the brilliant creek, a minnow flashes
delirious with gnats. The turtle’s heart
quickens its taps in the warm bank sludge.
As she chases a frisbee spinning in sunlight
a girl’s breasts bounce full and strong;
a boy’s stomach, as he turns, is flat and strong.

Swear by the locust, by dragonflies on ferns,
by the minnow’s flash, the tremble of a breast,
by the new earth spongy under our feet:
that as we grow old, we will not grow evil,
that although our garden seeps with sewage,
and our elders think it’s up for auction—swear
by this dazzle that does not wish to leave us—
that we will be keepers of a garden, nonetheless.