everyone
looks
older in the rice field --
short night
Planting
and picking rice under the hot sun is back breaking labor. The days are long.
The nights, too short. After a while, a laborer’s skin takes on the appearance
of dark brown leather. The weather during harvest time is well over a hundred
degrees Fahrenheit. The humidity, one hundred percent. Works starts early in the
morning before dawn and isn’t regulated by a time clock or child labor laws.
It is a matter of necessity. Babies born, dreams doused, lives expired...the
rice field is a jealous lover. When we were not on the front line or pulling
guard duty, American servicemen worked an eight hour day. We took frequent
breaks and guzzled soda pop. After work, we showered, ate dinner, and socialized
until lights out, our laundry and ironing done by cleaning women.
orphan,
who will feed you
this starless night
when sidewalks slay dreams?
The streets of Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and other cities in the former
Republic of South Vietnam were filled with orphans and homeless children during
the Vietnam War. Directly or indirectly, they were victims of the war. Whole
villages were bombed. Families extinguished. Mothers and fathers fighting for
one side or the other, laying dead in rice fields and jungles.
Half dressed toddlers holding the hands of older siblings begging soldiers for
money or food were commonplace. Their wounded looks and half smiles, haunting.
Some of the children on the streets were "love children" of American
soldiers who promised to marry their Vietnamese girlfriends and didn't...they
returned home after their tour of duty, leaving behind them empty promises and a
family with no means of support.
burnt
flesh and
jasmine co-mingle
this afternoon
American
jets dropped napalm bombs on Viet Cong strongholds. It was also shot
from flamethrowers and delivered via missiles. Napalm, when it comes into
contact with human skin, sticks to it and ignites, causing a person to become
a human torch.
little
girl,
the egg you are holding
is made of metal
A new
guy came aboard the YRBM-17, the river repair boat barge I was stationed on
in Dong Tam. He had a far off look in his eyes and a countenance that said he’d
been to Hell and back. He stuck out like a sore
thumb. Like most of us, he was barely out
of high school, but you wouldn’t know it. A frown was permanently etched
into his face, he socialized with no one during off duty hours, and rarely
spoke. When he did, it was in a low growl.
Chronologically a teenager, he was an old
man, a spent shell void of life, hope, and joy. It was a sad sight, something
none of us could relate to. It didn’t
take a psychologist to figure out that our new ship-mate was
a time bomb waiting. to explode. He was only with us a month and then reassigned.
We never saw nor heard from him again. I asked him before he left what was
bothering him. He told me he and some shipmates were walking through a village
a few months prior when a nine year old Vietnamese girl charged at them with
a live grenade. It was kill or be killed. He shot her dead with his M-16
automatic rifle, an event that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
