He has won an Academy of American Poets Prize . It had a profound impact on me. Finks squad leader, a bespectacled 19-year-old sergeant from Nebraska named Claude Van Andel, noticed how tired Fink was and offered to take his place as the patrols point man a squads most dangerous position. pity youMartha!. I think this poem was published some time before 1972 before I went to college.I cant remember the magazine (probably TIME). Poem for Our Dog Afraid of Thunder on a Rainy Day. 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. Who knows what else awaits only the touch of a pen or the favor of apublisher? hang around as a big dark cloud. Who likes blood and gore. Who waits in waves of heat before her. We were home finally going home. Of a war that he had fought in and the deeds that he had done. South Vietnamese government falls. Above, the Find out what each side had in its arsenal. hell was fighting whom? Vuong's new collection of poetry was inspired by his mother's death from breast cancer. In his poem, Duffy imagines the orders the North Vietnamese commander gave his troops: "The big American with the radio on his back, I want him killed, he is controlling the aircraft. her eyes It is, with touching effectiveness, his daughter who links so many of these poems together. In this morning sun. There is no escape. some nights I dig 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. You study the things which start fromscratch. I have nothing she needs but The time made him, in his words, more serious and played a subtle role in his decision to become a priest. Herbert Krohn, a former Army doctor, exhibits particular sensitivity and sympathy for the Vietnamese. All rights reserved. Howells was the Colonel's aide. Next time I see you I owe you a big bottle of scotch. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'sandhillsexpress_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_0',117,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-sandhillsexpress_com-large-mobile-banner-1-0');if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'sandhillsexpress_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_1',117,'0','1'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-sandhillsexpress_com-large-mobile-banner-1-0_1');if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[300,250],'sandhillsexpress_com-large-mobile-banner-1','ezslot_2',117,'0','2'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-sandhillsexpress_com-large-mobile-banner-1-0_2');.large-mobile-banner-1-multi-117{border:none!important;display:block!important;float:none!important;line-height:0;margin-bottom:15px!important;margin-left:auto!important;margin-right:auto!important;margin-top:15px!important;max-width:100%!important;min-height:250px;min-width:300px;padding:0;text-align:center!important}Copy that.Of the 471 men committed,I came out after two weeks of intense battlewith 36 surviving,most of them had been wounded.Duffy started writing the poem a week later, and has been adding to it ever since.No one won on Charlie;Each side managed to lose. 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. And most Americanshawks, doves and in-betweensdidnt want to hear what the soldiers had to say and refused to listen toit. I wanted to paint the picture of the action and a panorama of the combat there, he replied. and if we could not capture it It was also said the VC kept chickens leashed to strings. 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. You know now that your life Sign up for the American Experience newsletter! Albuquerque High School, 1962. One hopes for the same from Brown, McCarthy and others. 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. this pond her only Pacific, . It was his way of telling those who opposed the war that returning service members deserved respect, not contempt. An event that stunned the nation and forced an examination of U.S. military training and tactics. Barth's new book, Learning War: Selected Vietnam War Poems, called "De Bello," that reads:The troops deploy. Soon it will be here,It seems strange no more.Martin said, Strange no more. that as we grow old, we will not grow evil, But his poems are apparently based on interviews with numerous Vietnam veterans, and they ripple with authority. Air strikes, code-named Operation Rolling Thunder, begin in North Vietnam. To think of killing someone makes me nervous. the long line of theirvowels. You did a good job. served in Vietnam in any capacity at all. And other poets may yet emerge. resurrection day Outside, the buses waiting I n March 2019, three months before the publication of Ocean Vuong's novel On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, he called his agent from the hallway of a Hartford, Conn . A collection of original poetry from a Vietnam War Veteran, David Rose, who is diagnosed with PTSD by the Veterans Administration. Among his many awards and decorations were 29 for valor. Ex-infantryman Steve Hassett contributed half-a-dozen poems, including his eerily ironic Christmas, in which The Hessian On a rain-soaked day such as this. Even then, When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking, And agony's forgot, and hushed the crying. Confronting the ever-changing role of poetry in American culture, these works address the many ways art can respond to conflict and provide valuable language for confusion, loss, and trauma. 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. More than transcending Vietnam, in Blue Mountain Balaban absorbs Vietnam and incorporates it into a powerful vision of what the world ought tobe. "You don't want to let go . Ehrhart, the rebel son of a minister who had . Most had been in grade school or junior high school when John F. Kennedy had declared that we will bear any burden, pay any price in defense of liberty. If we cannot do him honor, while he's here to hear the praise. Something Running from her village, napalm It was getting a little dicey! Duffy replied. View of American troops from the 173rd Airborne Brigade as they exit a helicopter 40 miles south of Saigon, Vietnam, August 1965. At her. Also a trained anthropologist, Hurston collected folklore throughout the South and Caribbean reclaiming, honoring and celebrating Black life on its own terms. In one particularly striking poem, Interview with a Guy Named Fawkes, U.S. Army, McDonald capturesas well as any young grunt couldthe grinding frustrations of guerrillawar: you tell them this 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. The politician's stipend and the style in which he lives. A third major book to appear during the bicentennial year was Walter McDonalds Caliban in Blue (Texas Tech Press). But there is finally here, in these poems, a remarkable promise of hope, a refusal to forget the past and go on, willfully oblivious to history or the lessons that ought to have been learned. 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. That's what my writings reflect. But now, in his fourth collection, he revealed that the war was still with him. shivering uncontrollably in the mud. He wrote the poem a few years after coming home, when he was a student at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington. Of the 471 men committed,I came out after two weeks of intense battlewith 36 surviving,most of them had been wounded. our own or that of 13th-century Mongol armies look on it healed Apr 6, 2009. and the world's a little poorer, for a soldier died today. Copyright 2023 Newsday. Equally important was a new anthology, Demilitarized Zones (East River Anthology), co-edited by Jan Barry and a second WHAM contributor. would you really want some cop-out, with his ever waffling stand? and it takes cruelty to make any friends Possession turns on him like swimming ducks, // cutting the mustard Years before Agent Orange was widely acknowledged for the silent killer it isthe deadly seed sewn in Asia only to take root at home among those who thought theyd survivedBalaban wrote in Along theMekong: With a scientific turn of mind I can understand 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. For more poems about war, consider the following: "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae. For when countries are in conflict, then we find the Soldier's part. I am the . So easily frightened they were perfect warning. These poems are available in a book format. I wrote the poem within a few days of that. I am the last person you will see. I will stay with you until you stay with me. Balaban is an anomaly: a soldier-poet who was not a soldier; indeed, he opposed the war and became a conscientious objector. American troops withdraw and return home, though more than 2,500 soldiers remain missing in action or prisoners of war. (Enter your ZIP code for information on American Experience events and screening in your area.). a rifle, and This months harvest is tall green rice. But it offered additional poems by WHAM poets Barry, Cross, Krohn, Purcell, and others, as well as new work by Balaban andBerry. [All] our fear/and hate/Poured from our rifles/Into/the man in black/As he lost his face/In the smoke/Of an exploding hand frag, wrote infantryman and Bronze Star winner Frank A. Consequently, I have INDIAN LITERATURE (IL, 259), the flagship journal of Sahitya Akademi They were fighting for what they believed in. March 30, 2022 7:00 AM EDT. But retired Green Beret John Duffy turned his trial-by-fire into an epic poem of the Vietnam War. President Kennedy is assassinated; Vice-President Johnson succeeds Kennedy. 4) We were all clerks of various sorts. he learned to pay much closer watch What can be said with certainty is that these are accomplished poems by a skilled practitioner. Then, he sums up his own career, starting as a 17-year-old private and ending as a major with four combat tours. Thich Nhat Hanh dismissed the idea of death. Wets her face. 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. In The Sound of Guns, hewrites: At the university in town tell them shove it, theyre not here, tell them kiss in Vietnam I prayed fervently. In a letter, he told them Van Andel died as soldiers often do, taking on danger to protect comrades they sometimes barely know. to take us to the airport. Browns Returning Fire (San Francisco State University) proved that assumption to befalse. Month after month went by in the jungles and ricefields and hamlets of Vietnam with nothing to show for it but casualties. for the number you'd last after bitten. what do they know back where Of the dozen or so poems Paquet contributes, three or four must rank as among the very best Vietnam war poems yet written. upon her gold Only a little more than a yard away And 'tho sometimes to his neighbors, his tales became a joke. think it forgiven (national academy of letters, India) recently published a nice review to my Or the ordinary fellow, who in times of war and strife. Neither Paquet nor Casey ever published any additional poetry, to my knowledge, after 1972. In Mines, hewrites: Here is how you walk at night: slowly lift The American people turned their backs on the war long before it ended. with benediction In 1965, President Johnson commits 200,000 troops to the war, rising to more than 500,000 in 1967. skillful and practiced of the soldier-poets. In his exploits with his buddies; they were heroes, everyone. And finger paint the words of who I am So I can stay here beside you, In In Celebration of Spring, heinsists: Swear by the locust, by dragonflies on ferns, Buddhist monk Thch Quang Duc burns himself alive in Saigon. By clicking Sign up, you agree to our privacy policy. *** Oct. 7, 2012. ***. the shrapnel in my thighs keep track of time spent, and the VC would know our position. At the time, I was really angry in the aftermath of that talk. the rest, all Viet Cong forces begin prolonged attack on US bases, such as Khe Sanh. all those pierced eyes, ear slivers, jaw splinters, The conflict marked a turning point for how Americans saw the militarys place in the world. that we will be keepers of a garden,nonetheless. With the tears from mother's eyes. 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. They were fighting for what they believed in. Howell's vocabulary grew in Vietnam. writing class, include The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Communist North Vietnam invades South Vietnam and controls the country. Public obscenity likethis[.]. biggest 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. "The Diameter of the Bomb" by Yehuda Amichai. 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. Sailing to Bien Hoa istypical: In my dream of the hydroplane and he sat around the Legion, telling stories of the past. . Surely it has to do with the peculiar nature of the war itself. The whir of birds' wings has retaken thetrenches. It would be another two years before Bruce Weigl would publish his first book-length collection, A Romance (University of Pittsburgh). - Earnest Hemingway, (18991961). carried by raw emotion alone, and most of the soldier-poets were not really poets at all but rather soldiers so hurt and bitter that they could not maintain their silence any longer. In 1963, John Kennedy said in a speech at Amherst College, When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. Surely Vietnam was evidence enough of the corruption of power, and one might venture to say that the act of writing these poems even the worst of themis an act of cleansing. While the ordinary soldier, who offered up his all. the sad smile she alreadyhas. Kill or die is our fate. Here are poems ranging from the American West to the The Medal of Honors and Bones LI priest's poem about Vietnam War endures. All rights reserved. separation to her "God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children" by Yehuda Amichai. It also introduced a handful of good newcomers. Of credulous hearts, in heavensuch are but taking. Papers tell of their life stories, from the time that they were young. they fire on us. I don't think I like war anymore. But we'll hear his tales no longer, for ol' Bob has passed away. But his poems are wonderfully powerful, often intimately personal and sensitive. Goodbye, David -- my name is Dusty. He didn't die because he was sick, or he didn't die because he was in a wreck. The jungle/loaded, nobody/comes away in one piece. And in Coming Home, henotices: Someone has stacked his books, Sgt. I can tell true stories/of the jungle, he writes in When I Am 19 I Was aMedic: I sleep strapped to a .45, Fink ended up spending a year in Vietnam. Another collection of his poems,The Great Whirl of Exile, was published by Curbstone Press in 1998. we called in the Cobras. the Marine Corps MacMurray had showered ten minutes before. that unlike Speak from out the grave: "I am the Unknown Soldier, The spirit voice began. Perhaps just a simple headline, in the paper that might say: To all our Soldiers past and present, God Bless, Glory to the American Flag, long may she wave, So many have been covered with her when they've, So many of us have taken for granted that our, We tend to forget those who have kept that, While some of us sit at home and refuse to, While a Soldier pushes that aside to continue, Some sit around and complain about the food, While you sit around and complain about what, Remember what a Soldier somewhere for you is, A Soldier stands tall and proud and ready for, In Our Hearts, In Our Prayers, In Our Minds For All Time. Our children slept. One might argue ad infinitum about what constitutes valid moral justification for any given war. "Literary critics may think it inappropriate, but I think poetry is a perfect vehicle for writing about war," Weigl said. Like the Wall, Scruggs said, Finks poem addresses the loss that so many veterans felt and still feel. to put your gear on and hear shots, Bowing then to the river. It seems like, going in, your position was not survivable., I think probably so, but I was never fearful in the whole battle.. warped it out of place It's not often (if ever) a recipient of the Medal of Honor is also a published poet. In Orpheus in the Upper World, he offers perhaps an explanation for the hundreds and even thousands of poems written by those who fought thewar: For when his order had burst his head, me home, burning; men running out of theflames. Bobrowsky, Cross, and Purcell contribute powerful poems. silly hats she sells Americans and And for what? Edited by three Vietnam veterans working out of a basement kitchen in Brooklyn and published originally through private funding, it contained 109 poems by the editors and 30 fellow veterans. Calling in everything from B-52 bombers to helicopter gunships, Duffy and his troops held out for as long as they could. They dared not dream, for it might be forever. is the jungle One night they overran the compound. The conflict marked a turning point for how Americans saw the military's place in the . But his presence should remind us, we may need his like again. measure what I think we haveleft. Anchored in red morning mist a narrow junk 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. Until I slipped and climbed 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. And ghostlylaughter. ' 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. He believed in me.". Thank you for taking the time to enter the contest and sharing your poem with us. our hands around. to the microphone From breaking news to special features and documentaries, the NewsdayTV team is covering the issues that matter to you. But for others in the volume, and for Vietnam-related poetry in general, Winning Hearts and Minds proved to be only the forerunner for a body It temains as relevant today as it did then. What else can we do? His son had died nine thousand miles away, Idly the thick Rach Binh Thuy slides by. Green as far from the shit : I didnt have a sign on me that says crazy combat medic with PTSD, like giving me the boot as I walk out the door, Stuck on depression could use some relief, Others come home and hide behind closed door, Shooting a machine gun and throwing flames, I know it's a game but it got my attention, There's more than training that powers us, It's love for our brothers that is a big plus, Went to war to find love for their brothers, Providing security so his platoon could advance, Stormed enemy trench to give them a chance, Sacrificed himself while his platoon made a stand, Gave his own life so his brothers will last, During enemy attack, comrade falls in the line of fire, Leaves the safety of his hole, knowing the consequences are dire, Watches the enemy aim knowing it's the end, Two men in light aircraft take hit and loose power, Pilot won't survive but the navigator can, Ditched the plane in water to save the other man, It's hard to comprehend what he had just done, Prisoner of war with the Viet Cong for 3 years, Gave his food and meds to support his peers, Gained respect from the enemy for the valor he showed. In a tight sequence of poems, the persona he creates bids goodbye to his family, does his time in Vietnam, and comes home. if(typeof ez_ad_units!='undefined'){ez_ad_units.push([[970,250],'sandhillsexpress_com-box-4','ezslot_4',113,'0','0'])};__ez_fad_position('div-gpt-ad-sandhillsexpress_com-box-4-0');CreateSpace PublishingBe brave my comrades. Moreover, for the most part, soldiers will fight and kill willingly only if they find that reason believable. I try to imagine she runs down the road and wings the Units of our Conflict -- all Conflicts. It was my take on soldiers, as opposed to the one she made.. women and kids in shacks when blood was spilled on my 214. bloody papers I carry through life. He had enlisted in the Army in 1960 and gone to war six years later, a geriatric fighter compared to the teenagers . The fear has come over me quick. More realistically, one hopes that in writing these poems, the poets might at least have begun to cleanse their own souls of the torment that was and is Vietnam. var googletag = googletag || {}; The "b" on Howell's typewriter didn't work. With some notable exceptions, they were artless poems, lacking skill and polish, but collectively they had the force of a wreckingball. Waiting for the enemy, faces without names; Their bodies mount-up now God's to claim. sidling heel and toe in graceful A sergeant said Pass me the salt, boy In addition, this collection includes several poems from the September 1972 issue of Poetry magazine, Against the War.. Republishing, rebroadcasting, rewriting, redistributing prohibited. By the time, the Vietnam war became the longest and the most controversial war in world history. Those who protested the war extended their outrage to those whod fought it. Duffy was the lone American advisor to a battalion of South Vietnamese paratroopers sent to hold Fire Base Charlie. Two of his poetry collections,SangreandThe History of Homewon the American Book Award. God woman aint An estimated 2 million Vietnamese civilians were killed, and 58,000 US soldiers died in action. His no dead bulb gonna rise this May He served as a correspondent during the conflict, and some of his descriptions of battle . His MorningA Death is a masterpiece, capturing at once the new, sophisticated battlefield medicine of Vietnam and the ancient, ageless human misery and futility of allwars: You are dead just as finally Substitute Afghanistan for Vietnam and it is current.I am posting this today (Election Day) after reading an article in the NYT about what patriotism means to Democrats and Republicans. Or would you want a Soldier, who has sworn to defend. Vietnam Tears I stood and I watched as a mother cried, when she had heard that her son had died. and ducks that others feed. " The Soldier" by Rupert Brooke. They have known shame, who love unloved. seems I can not get away. During the last years of the war, when the inevitable outcome was becoming increasingly apparent to everyone involved, the best journalists covering Vietnam shifted their attention from day-to-day stories to reflect on larger themes that attempted to explain what had actually happened and why. "Death in the Afternoon, Chapter 16", But I have walked in the face of the moon, I have befouled the waters and tainted the air of a magnificent land, I have flown through the sky faster than the sun, But I had idled in the streets made ugly with traffic, But I have built upon it hundred million homes, But I have built courthouses to keep them free, I have outraged my brothers in alleys and ghettos, I have scribbled out filth and pornography, But I have elevated the philosophy of man. 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. A Soldier will stand and fight all night to, Men Standing Tall and Proud They be A Country Behind Them in a Solemn Sea, HALL OF HEROES (PAKISTAN ~ IRAQ~ AFGHANISTAN), Photo Art of John Gariano USMC Recon/Vietnam, Photo Art of John Gariano USMC Recon/Vietnam 1963. some jerk who breaks his promise, and cons his fellow man? What patriotism is NOT is the fear and hatred spewed by Trump and his ilk. their damp flutes, The antiwar rhetoric really hit home with Fink after he heard former nun and antiwar activist Elizabeth McAlister speak at the seminary. the cries and screams I heard so loud. Story produced by Mary Walsh. While continuing the tone set by the earlier Winning Hearts and Minds, this later collection lifted the literary merit of the offerings a notch or two.In "Guerrilla War," W.D. Dedicated their Courage and Time to a Cause. It is inscribed inaccurately on a memorial stone at the Northport VA Medical Center. is paid off with a medal and perhaps a pension, small.