that although our garden seeps with sewage, and our elders think its up for auctionswear I wish you could have seen him the day he died, he wrote. skillful and practiced of the soldier-poets. The politician's stipend and the style in which he lives. I don't think I like war anymore. By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy. 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. 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. While Balabans poems offer little comfort, they have much to teach. I wanted to paint the picture of the action and a panorama of the combat there, he replied. his home, his kin, and Country, and would fight until the end? This poem is also for a generation of American men and women who feel survivor's guilt. Seen seventy-odd years pass by on this planet. And in 1982, his Blue Mountain (also from Unicorn) ably demonstrated the growth of his own poetry over the years. I am the . 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. Balaban is an anomaly: a soldier-poet who was not a soldier; indeed, he opposed the war and became a conscientious objector. and ducks that others feed. But we'll hear his tales no longer, for ol' Bob has passed away. Why?. then at least let's give him homage, at the ending of his days. The type of day that dogs don't understand. In Vietnam I prayed fervently Month after month went by in the jungles and ricefields and hamlets of Vietnam with nothing to show for it but casualties. one leg, clear the sides with your arms, clear the back, Here are poems ranging from the American West to the an airfield mortared. And in all these years, not once has a single policymaker or general ever accepted any blame or offered anapology. 2023 Sandhills Express (KCNI|KBBN), All rights reserved. A company of NVAs crashing toward you War Poems by Vietnam Veterans, a $1.95 olive-drab paperback put . The Medal of Honors and The poems are copyrighted, but can be used for any nonprofit reason with credits. Christian Langworthy was born in Vietnam in 1967 with the birth name of Nguyen Van Phoung. Past the olive drab A collection of original poetry from a Vietnam War Veteran, David Rose, who is diagnosed with PTSD by the Veterans Administration. When a loved one doesn't return from war there will be many unresolved feelings. Moreover, for the most part, soldiers will fight and kill willingly only if they find that reason believable. How still he stands as mists begin to move, No, it was a combat, said Duffy.Major John J. Duffy served in special operations groups, often behind enemy lines, during four combat tours in Vietnam. March 30, 2022 7:00 AM EDT. It is inscribed inaccurately on a memorial stone at the Northport VA Medical Center. He is author of 14 books of prose and poetry, and editor or coeditor of four anthologies, and has been publishing regularly in VQR since 1980. But if some of the non-Vietnam poems occasionally reveal the graduate student laboring to flex his intellectual muscle, they also reveal the poets ability to transcend Vietnam and reach out to the wider world aroundhim. Danger came from unexpected places. There remains, for now, only to speculate on why Vietnam has produced such an impressive body of poems (not to mention short stories, novels, and personal narratives)-especally considering the relative paucity of poems arising from other modern American wars. Marines died in the jungles of South Vietnam While outside of country, the world moved on. He must be destroyed!Martin said, That antenna was like a kill me sign.Plus, I was 62, and the Vietnamese are typically about 56, Duffy said.The air strikes he called in were the only thing keeping badly-outnumbered South Vietnamese troops from being overrun. Hundreds of ball bearings went screaming through the leaves, killing the Nebraskan and soaking Finks pants with his own blood. There are five others beside you. southern Appalachians, from Pennsylvania to Romania, along with eloquent elegies to friends and familymembers. And ghostlylaughter. shivering uncontrollably in the mud. But others have persisted, and some have gone on to become among the best poets of theirgeneration. served in Vietnam in any capacity at all. (national academy of letters, India) recently published a nice review to my In Farmers Song at Can Tho, hewrites: What is a man but a farmer Yet that oblique approach is enormously effective, creating a netherworld of light and shadows akin to patrolling through triple-canopied jungle. Pasture unfolding before us can denyit. on a rain soaked day such as this. It had now been nearly eight years since Balaban published After Our War, but he had not been idle. Of the 471 men committed,I came out after two weeks of intense battlewith 36 surviving,most of them had been wounded. " The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke. But his presence should remind us, we may need his like again. embarrasses me. In Eating the Forest, he speaks of soldiers/trained to sleep/where the moon sinks/and bring the darkness home[. As the fading light allowed. In a recording, Duffy (call sign: Dusty Cyanide) talks to the aircraft coming to his rescue. Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. Korea produced almost nothing at all. You chose to write poetry. While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all. Papers tell of their life stories, from the time that they were young. 4 min read. his cooplike, concrete sentry perched mid-bridge 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. You have stopped for a break, stand up View of American troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade as they exit a helicopter 40 miles south of Saigon, Vietnam, August 1965. that was not a village any more Komunyakaa's Vietnam poems are to be found in 1988's Dien Cai Dau (a Vietnamese expression for "crazy"). After our war, the dismembered bits He has won an Academy of American Poets Prize . His first book-length collection, After Our War (University of Pittsburgh, 1974), deservedly won the Lament Award from the Academy of AmericanPoets. we called forjets. Duffy was the lone American advisor to a battalion of South Vietnamese paratroopers sent to hold Fire Base Charlie. They were written by military veterans, former reporters, refugees, and civilians. Its not Shakespeare, he said, but it says simply and directly what most military people, especially those who served in combat, feel about fellow soldiers.. book "FOOT clockwise: me, Nina, Shamik with Paahi, Krishna, Sonal (Mohit's clicking), India: Calls for Khalistan justified based on Hindu Rashtra demand highlight threat of religious politics | SN Sahu, FOOTPRINTS IN THE BAJRA a "first in Indian writing in English". You chose to write poetry. W. D. Ehrhart, a former Marine sergeant and veteran of the Vietnam War, holds a PhD in American Studies from the University of Wales, where he did his dissertation on American poetry of the Korean War. forcing his touchagain. 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.. Im sailing to Bien Hoa You have read 1 of 10 free articles in the past 30 days. Navy Crosses on my Face. At the feet of the girl at the laundry, are sometimes disproportionate, to the service he gives. What patriotism is NOT is the fear and hatred spewed by Trump and his ilk. Torture, assault and battery, malicious destruction, murder and mayhemthe very things young Americans had always been taught only the enemy didwere widespread and tacitly or openly sanctioned. at the Chu Lai Laundry, who wouldnt give him his uniforms because they werentfinished: Who wouldve thought the world stops These poems are available in a book format. I know what it is like to be so afraid Sailing to Bien Hoa istypical: In my dream of the hydroplane It was not the politicians, with their compromise and ploys. It was a brutal battle; no quarter asked, none given. 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. Surely it has to do with the peculiar nature of the war itself. ] In Still Later There Are War Stories, he warns: We grow by the Vietnamese Waiting for the enemy, faces without names; Their bodies mount-up now God's to claim. And other poets may yet emerge. I've never been a killing kind of man. what release? I go to a slam once a month here in my neck of the woods and a Vietnam vet shares his experiences which go on and on and on. Perhaps because he has come to terms with the worst, he can also now remember with a certain amusement The Girl a procession of whales, and far off And when soldiers have too much time and too many questions and no answers worthy of the label, they begin to turn inward on their own thoughts where lies the terrible struggle to make sense of the enormity of the crime ofwar. The shortest poem in the book is LEclatante Victoire de KheSanh: The main thing It also introduced a handful of good newcomers. by this dazzle that does not wish to leave us And 'tho sometimes to his neighbors, his tales became a joke. Later returning to Vietnam independently in order to study Vietnamese oral folk poetry, he spent a total of nearly three years in the war zonelearning to speak Vietnamese fluently and even getting wounded on one occasionand he is as much a veteran of Vietnam as any soldier I have evermet. turned out to be artillery rounds. to leave such gold, he thinks. #4. mad1982 said: Perhaps it refers to something hypothetical, unreal.? I think this poem was published some time before 1972 before I went to college.I cant remember the magazine (probably TIME). So I can keep on living, 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). He aims. was where we thawed. Bobrowsky, Cross, and Purcell contribute powerful poems. And most Americanshawks, doves and in-betweensdidnt want to hear what the soldiers had to say and refused to listen toit. It's so easy to forget them, for it is so long ago. | Privacy, Coyright, Legal Info | Website Developed by Hollman Media, LLC, class="cbs_national-template-default single single-cbs_national postid-2127832 tribe-no-js wpb-js-composer js-comp-ver-6.10.0 vc_responsive". LikeIvy. Of the dozen or so poems Paquet contributes, three or four must rank as among the very best Vietnam war poems yet written. all those pierced eyes, ear slivers, jaw splinters, pretty flowersll rise Copyright 2023 The Virginia Quarterly Review. With the tears from mother's eyes. Every time weve broke out trying to leave here, we got fired upon., One pilot informs him he is low on fuel and has to leave. Windy sighs. - Harlan Coben. only the gulf between herself only a little more than a yard away. You killed the enemy or the enemy killed you. Story produced by Mary Walsh. An estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed, and 58,000 US soldiers died in action. front, put the leg down, likeswimming. But retired Green Beret John Duffy turned his trial-by-fire into an epic poem of the Vietnam War. There is no escape. Fred was a selfless and wonderful young man. Today, at 71, Msgr. Not all the poems in After Our War deal with Vietnam. We watched He didn't die because he was sick, or he didn't die because he was in a wreck. Today, comfort and teaching themselves deceive This is for Fred-who carried me on his back when I could walk no further. "Memorial Day for the War Dead" by Yehuda Amichai. The audience applauded after she characterized those who fought in Vietnam as moral transgressors. In the tellingly brutal and straightforward poem, Burning Shit at An Khe, he describes in painful detail the repulsive task of cleaning makeshift outhouses: I tried to light a match the fun, our sense of humor 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 For more info:Major John J. Duffy (army.mil)Major John J. Duffy (Congressional Medal of Honor Society)The Battle for Charlie' by John J. Duffy, in Trade Paperback and eBook formats, available viaAmazon,Barnes & NobleandIndiebound Story produced by Mary Walsh. the Army, She does not feel his claim None of his words had "b" in them. } His 2019 novel, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, followed a boy who, like Vuong, is an immigrant from Vietnam. In this morning sun. Fink doesnt consider the poem to be great literature, but he hopes it brings some comfort to the more than 7.3 million living veterans who served during the Vietnam War. Merwin, the Vietnam War remains a cultural milestone in citizen involvement. as morning, curling, billows creep across Just ask if you need assistance or have any questions, we are here to help you. goes off to serve his Country and offers up his life? Democrats are more nuanced--more in line with this poem. Trained to fight and not to run for the Vietnam War, Where time has forgotten, and joy comes no more. . Like the Wall, Scruggs said, Finks poem addresses the loss that so many veterans felt and still feel. Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images. sidling heel and toe in graceful Zambia. Among his many awards and decorations were 29 for valor. Casey, a former military policeman, works exclusively with the truncated matter-of-fact speech rhythms that mirror the Vietnam grunts favorite phrase: There it isno further explanation offered. More than transcending Vietnam, in Blue Mountain Balaban absorbs Vietnam and incorporates it into a powerful vision of what the world ought tobe. was ourvillage. Above, the There is no gold for him Along with Virgil Suarez and Victor Hernandez Cruz, Quintana co-editedPaper Dance: 55 Latino Poets. 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. The penis in the air the cries and screams I heard so loud. School children walk by, he writes in OnDeath: Some stare To cross a river meant leeches. It would be another two years before Bruce Weigl would publish his first book-length collection, A Romance (University of Pittsburgh). It had a profound impact on me. like sillowy seeds of milkweed pod, McDonald, like Balaban, is anomalous, but for different reasons: he was a career Air Force officer and pilot, his age closer to those who planned the war than to most of those who fought it. Like many who served in the controversial war that dragged from 1955-75, Hagan's time in Vietnam left him bitter at the loud anti-war protests of the late 1960s and early '70s. tight-lipped men tell me the war in Vietnam is over, After the Navy, keep track of time spent, God Of credulous hearts, in heavensuch are but taking. . damn, The dissident poet Nguyen Chi Thien in 2008 in California. I checked. floating in urine, a rat carrying a banjo, Vietnam is officially reunited as the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. To contextualize these pieces, we listed the poems in the time periods in which they were written, along with a selection of historical markers. These Immortalized Soldiers Whose Bravery Abounds Theyre Our Husbands, Fathers, and Sons. A poet had better keep his mouth shut, he writes in Saying Good-by to Mr. and Mrs. My, Saigon,1972: unless hes found words to comfort and teach. Outside, the buses waiting By the time United States troops withdrew from Vietnam in 1973, the Vietnam War had become one of the longest, most controversial conflicts in American history. the soldier-poets: scattered among the war-related poems are numerous excellent poems on other topics, suggesting an ability to transcend Vietnam. to surgery in Saigon, I wondered, what had they drunk Calling in everything from B-52 bombers to helicopter gunships, Duffy and his troops held out for as long as they could. Out of the stomach Going to the US Department of Defense and the VA to tell them you can retro engineer your own post war PTSD in order to train others who are going off to war to not receive PTSD after the war, is like going to Saudi Arabia to tell them you have developed an engine that runs on air. The battle raged back and forth. to take us to the airport. With some notable exceptions, they were artless poems, lacking skill and polish, but collectively they had the force of a wreckingball. like tiny glaciers. Dedicated their Courage and Time to a Cause. Men fought and died for nameless hills, only to walk away from them when the battle was over. And the heat and the worthlessness Public obscenity likethis[.]. Then, he sums up his own career, starting as a 17-year-old private and ending as a major with four combat tours. got measured, issued new dress uniforms One would like to think that the soul of the nation might somehow be cleansed thereby, but that is hardly likely. By Vicki PrichardSpecial to NKyTribuneThere is a poem in R.L. if ( 'querySelector' in document && 'addEventListener' in window ) { And not your good love and not the rain-swept air Meet the influential author and key figure of the Harlem Renaissance. No one won on Charlie;Each side managed to lose. To suggest further additions, please contact us. Copyright 2023 Newsday. may she never in saying my wifes name Those who protested the war extended their outrage to those whod fought it. resurrection day They came in hissing, My situation is I got 37 personnel. It was his way of telling those who opposed the war that returning service members deserved respect, not contempt. He wrote the poem a few years after coming home, when he was a student at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. in Nhatrang, in 1962, we just did ourjobs[.]. be hes one of the Lords women and kids in shacks In Rocket Attack, he first describes the death of a young Vietnamese girl, then criesout: Daughter, oh God, my daughter This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions. The news came on. They had grown up in the shadow of their fathers generation, the men who had fought the good war from 1941 to 1945. It was my take on soldiers, as opposed to the one she made.. got a standing ovation Only six of these 34 poems, in fact, deal with Vietnam, two others referring to the war in passing. Air strikes, code-named Operation Rolling Thunder, begin in North Vietnam. Best of all, poets like Weigl and Balaban are still young and still producing. 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. Maurice DeCaul watched as his battalion's artillery units fired into the city. knowing I would have to kill whatever was out there, that malformations in lab mice may not occur in children that as we grow old, we will not grow evil, he could promise Above the stinking jungle and her pain Possession turns on him like swimming ducks, Monopoly es el juego de mesa favorito de Estados Unidos, una carta de amor al capitalismo desenfrenado y a nuestra sociedad de libre mercado. Idly the thick Rach Binh Thuy slides by. Sgt. Balaban is particularly adept at contrasting the impact of the war on Vietnam with the indifference of those at home. What else can we do? Because of his unique situation, however, Balaban brings to his poetry a perspective unlike any other. Where then do these poems comefrom? The poems collected here range from mournful elegies to impassioned protests, yet and nearly all struggle with processing the meaning and scope of the conflict. His poem captures the bond soldiers feel.. cannons twice as fast as the old gunships. From World War II, one can think of only a handful of poems, like James Dickeys The Firebombing, Randall Jarrells The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner, and sections of Thomas McGraths Letter to an Imaginary Friend. Only a little more than a yard away The dying and wounded moaning softly,Despair and hurt are common:Is this glory?Martin said, Thats a good question: Is this glory?Is this glory? for the number you'd last after bitten. Bowels and a heart that sings By the time, the Vietnam war became the longest and the most controversial war in world history. ***, Im tired of the rice Like its predecessor, DMZ contained much that relied on emotion rather than craft. Consequently, I have INDIAN LITERATURE (IL, 259), the flagship journal of Sahitya Akademi and sent to the Mess Hall, choice USA steaks. Like him, many of us who were . that swirls upon her face but cannot blink Poem for Our Dog Afraid of Thunder on a Rainy Day. 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. 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. Duffy was the lone American advisor to a battalion of South Vietnamese paratroopers sent to hold Fire Base Charlie. A poem of McDonalds appeared recently in The Atlantic. Khalistan Calls no Trifle in Punjab, But Hindu Majoritarianism Bigger Chocolate steamed Cross, Jr. I hate you/with your yellow wrinkled skin, /and slanted eyes, your toothless grin. With the passage of time, Caseys poems seem less substantial than former medic Paquets, but back then they were deemed good enough to earn him the Yale Younger Poets Award, and his collection Obscenities appeared almost simultaneously with Winning Hearts andMinds. upon her gold Four current veterans one of the Vietnam War and three who served in Iraq explain how writing their experiences down has helped them come to terms with what they lived through. to put your gear on and hear shots, You're far from home. Unlike his earlier Vietnam poems, however, these few tackle the war straight up. Why?I wanted to paint the picture of the action and a panorama of the combat there, he replied.Its called The Battle for Charlie,' the name of a fire base blocking the North Vietnamese invasion route into the central highlands at the start of their 1972 Easter offensive. South Vietnamese government falls. Absent are the dreams and illusions, the surreality. I have watched children starve from my golden towers. Bombs so long falling; after falling, You look quickly around you: when it is a lie to speak, a lie to keepsilent. Running from her village, napalm I remember a flower, Target him! 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.It temains as relevant today as it did then. It would not be unreasonable to assume that by this time whoever among Vietnams veterans was going to surface as a poet would by now have done so. from North Vietnam, mines strapped to their chests: a fool counting the cards, a monkey praying, 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. 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