The
ground
and the river look the same
this afternoon.
The
base I was stationed on in the Mekong Delta was built on
what was once a rice field. To make the land level, army
engineers and Vietnamese laborers filled in the area with
dirt. Lacking imagination, ground cover wasn't planted. The
base was a dirty island in the middle of a lush, green
jungle. The eyesore of eyesores. Needless to say, the ground
was hard as a rock during the dry season. It was a different
story during the Monsoon season when torrential rains
inundated the ground. Jeeps and heavy equipment sunk in
minutes. The roads were a joke. The dirty brown Mytho River
and banks of the Base were indistinguishable at times. I
wonder if the base was returned to its natural state after
the war ended.
our
shadows wore
different hats the summer
you called winter
The
Vietnamese are a complex people with a richly diverse
culture. The average American soldier in the late 1960's,
knew little or nothing about them. Most of us fought in the
war because we were drafted, sought out adventure, or felt
it our duty to rid the world of Communism. The majority of
us couldn't point out Vietnam on a world map let alone tell
you about its people. We were sent to Vietnam to protect
American economic interests like Firestone Rubber, Shell
Oil, and other U.S. entities. We were taught nothing about
the country we were supposed to protect in regards to its
history and culture. Many servicemen called the Vietnamese
people, "Gooks", which is a derogatory name
similar in nature to "Nigger" or "Wop".
What does that tell you? Our attitude and disrespect of the
Vietnamese culture worked against us as time wore on. So did
our lack of a clear vision. We fought in an unpopular,
politically confusing war. A war orchestrated by politicians
whose sons did not participate. The real Vietnam War was a
war few of us experienced or knew about. It was the
ideological war fought away from our bases in the homes and back streets
of this complex nation. It is a war still being fought
today.
Terra
cotta men
squat on the earth -waiting
for rain.
Captured
Viet Cong were jailed in a compound on the Army side of our
base in Dong Tam It was a dusty, uneven patch of dirt
surrounded by barbed wire. There were no toilets, no shade,
and no running water. The conditions were horrid. Prisoners
squatted on the ground (the customary way of sitting for a
Vietnamese peasant), their eyes glazed over, the stench of
human faecal matter permeating the hot, humid air. Dirty and
unkempt, the prisoners looked like terra cotta statues.
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