In as much as time eternal has not lessened the driving
determination of writers, whether they be poets, song
writers or novelists, to bring romance or glamour into the
bitter struggles of war, the devastation of that same
horror, defying any truth, whether it be base or
otherwise, still exists. I, having not only seen it
first-hand in two wars, but played havoc in the
destruction as well, bring a moment of truth to the
forefront... There is NO glamour or romance there!
Having said that, I must backtrack somewhat to stumble
with a statement or two in the form of a poem which offers
a love of people for a land, and a hold of that land on a
people, seeming to say in some strange and demanding
tongue, "You are mine, we have found life and love
together... for one another." I felt this much more
intense in a malignant quagmire called Vietnam than I ever
found in Korea sixteen years earlier... sixteen years
younger. I felt a malady, a
sickness so poignant with feeling that it was impossible
to find a divider to lay the feeling to the proper side...
love or hate. The only truth I could find was that a
man, woman or child seem to realize that, from birth to
death, this was an absolute part of their "trail of
life"... be it love or hate. When
I left Vietnam, I was unable to leave these feelings
behind to the extent that I had when leaving Korea sixteen
years earlier. I had already been baptized into the
first verse of what I would spend almost two years
writing... fourteen years after reaching the quiet and
malevolent world once more, enlarging upon, but unable to
make Vietnam go away. The sights, the smells were
there regardless of what I tried to think or decide.
I found myself sitting on the edge of the bed in our
quarters at the Marine Corps Base at Camp Pendleton,
California, to which I was ordered after Vietnam. I
sat there for a period of time looking at what I called
"safe lights". I knew only lights in Nam that
signified death and/or danger. I immersed myself in
these beautiful lights signifying safety! It was
much later before I was able stop this practice. WAR
romantic? Speculate next time you hear or read this!
Bill Childers
Copyright :2002
[TOC]
[Top of Page] |
|
It's a dark land, wet, soggy, that's called men to
sweat and strain.
The bare cry of the peasant-child called men, ...but, for
what gain?
The bleeding wound, death's stench, aged body racked with
pain...
The calling, calling, in a strange language, for life to
live again!
And...we've answered...O God, yes!...the young, the
not-so-young.
And, we're afraid when we have..."Live, peasant-child,
old-man!"
All want to live in the decency of their time, know
right...wrong.
The young want so much to live...the 'aged' want only a
land.
Fertile soil, sodden burdens...long the march of time and
man...
Yielding their miserly worth, strength, strength of sorts to
ignorant masses.
Frail in birth, unclean in life, unsecure in death...flotsam
in sand
Washed upon the beach of time by angry waves, violent
clashes!
It's not new...the violence, drudgery, unbridled fury,
kindled.
But, they ragged bodies of desperate youth...this...is new
in 'kind'!
When it has groped , struggled, life apart from a mother's
womb...
Who...has listened, has come to help, just one...a life to
find?
The dark land with its maladies, ill-born purpose
long-forgotten,
Where battles rage, lives meet in death...or death...or
death.
What purpose is sought with the price of brutal land left to
rot?!
What gain is known ere eternity be had in one struggling
death?
We live, struggle long to clear the air of humankind's
existence.
We clearly give, having long quit expecting return on our
giving.
We strive to grasp, having long-since ceased to fain in
pretense...
Yet, that we can always stand, we must seek essence in
living!
Whether in dark lands, or cities bright with man's
artificiality...
Whether we know the reason, or spin in some ill-begotten
cause,
Whether the peasant-child becomes the old man in biting
reality...
The young bleed...answering in echoing, echoing,
echoing...loss!
Bill Childers
Vietnam 1968-69
Copyright :2002 [TOC]
[Top of Page] |