NAM 1

One can learn much about the War in Vietnam with four simple statements and when and who made the statements.

1964 “There is a long dark period before us but we will emerge victorious.” President Lyndon Johnson

1967 “There is a light at the end of the tunnel.” Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara

1972 “Will the last grunt to leave Nam, please turn out the light at the end of the tunnel?” An unknown grunt in the Central Highlands on Vietnam on pulling out of a fire base.

!975 “We have reached the end of the tunnel and there is no light.” News anchor Walter Cronkite as the last helicopter lifted off from the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon



The Cry of a Father. 1986

My boy, he is almost eight now, asked me about the war
And I knew not what to tell him
I do not want him to think of war as heroic or brave because it is not
It is life and death, mostly by plain luck

I want him to hate war as I hate it and I never want him to see it
I don’t want him to hear the roar of big guns at night
Until He needs the noise to sleep
And silence scares him into total awakeness

I don’t want him to see the pain on his friends’ faces
As they die around him
Or to lay behind a dead man to save his own life

He should never meet a stranger who hates him enough to kill him
Or who fears him that much
And he should never have to move into a village after the bombs have fallen
And see the blackened burned bodies of the small children lying beside the burned mommies

Or to hear the so-called lucky ones
Crying for mommies they will never hear or see again

Or to carry that child through the brush to the Med-Evac chopper
Feeling her skin peeling off onto his hands, hearing the screams
The weight of her body against his hands is more than the small child can bear

GOD!
DAMN YOU!
ARE YOU THERE?????

I do not know anymore
But if you are; please spare my boy

I did my duty; I fought, I killed and I cried
Let him not have to do that
I beg you please spare him

Spare him the things I saw and did
Spare him the pain that never goes away
The dreams that never stop

Never let him see the horror of war
The hungry people willing to sell their bodies, their sisters, their mommies
Just to eat

Kill him first
It will be easier for him, for the memories are bad
Waking up in the middle of the night hearing screams that never end

GOD?
That little girl?
Did she make it?
I never found out.

I asked a lot of people. Did she make it?
I still hear the screams as she struggled to get out of my hands
The horrible screams of pain as the burnt flesh stuck to my hands

I can see the eyes as she looked at me
I can smell her even now so many years later
And I still gag and vomit
The pain searing my brain, my heart, my soul

If I live a million years I will always see her eyes and that pain

GOD?
Are you listening to me?
Never let my son do that. Spare him!

GOD?
DAMN YOU!
ARE YOU THERE?

No, you never were, were you?
You turned away from your own son
So why can I not turn away from my son.