Please do not scroll down until you hear the music, "Knights in White Satin."



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Humpalong Blues
by Gary Jacobson October © 2005

I’m so tired of humping
This verdant land with my life protecting
A gung-ho naive boy still smiling
Called to take a stand
Draw freedom’s line in proverbial sand
Sent to give a poor country a hand
I’m a knight in white satin
Knees feeling like gelatin
There ain't no cure for the humpalong blues
That your whole life devalues.
Just an American boy-next-door grunting
Thirty klicks hard marching
Watching ... Hunting
The bullet with your name on it fearing
Red hot sands burn my feet
Under my helmet cooking, red as a beet
Downright tired and gnarly
Sweat runnin’ down my neck with things creepy crawly
There ain't no cure for the humpalong blues
For combat infantrymen just payin' dues!
Looking for Charlie
Search down a dark ravine valley
For a little guy in black pajamas
Make poor boy’s call for the love of their mamas
March up the mountain
Hump down the mountain
Swim the rivers
Pull out bamboo slivers
Pick off leaches
Search the hooches
Bayonet probe for booby traps
Bound to make life itself elapse
Camouflage sweat burning the eye
Bricky dry
Too weary to cry
That ain't no lie
Walkin’ under a hot Vietnamese sun to dry
Just waitin’ for my turn to die
Just reconnoiter
Don't just itter
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Knights in white satin
Humping for the man hifalutin’
Just doing his killing chore
Wounded of mind and body sore
Monsoon wet
Hung out Vet
Move slow like the walking dead
Heart consumed with fearful dread
Pack feeling like lead
Gotta move fast
To save your ass
Legs cramping
Back burning
Stomach churning
Too tired to fight
Find Charlie we just might
Might be dead before this night
Search all the coulees
Look in all the trees
Pray for a breeze
Just slogging one foot after the other
Following a brother
Able to think no further
Than one foot at a time
In syncopated rhyme
Knights in white satin
Hard-luck soul’s a rustin’
So thirsty
Lips chapped and crusty
Drank my last water hours ago
Patrolling to find the foe
Life ebbing by degrees
For Uncle Sam’s obligees
Government pledgees
Sad sack enlistees
In this combat infantry groove
Always on the move
Always on the edge
For sanity you dredge
Lest push comes to shove
Dreaming of a courtly love
Can’t stop
Won’t stop
I want to stop
But they won’t let me stop
Knights in white satin
Whether bad guy’r good Samaritan
Sure ain’t no puritan
Pound that ground
Look carefully all around
Life ... and death, ripe in every sound
If you want to stay around
Look for those must-sees
Look up for snipers in the trees
Look down on the ground for abnormalities
See the loose dirt
Shoved cold chills up your spine alert
A reality insert
Did that bush move
Bring M-16s online to prove
False alarm
Disarm
Adrenaline dump
That heart in your throat lump
Grunt on
Push on
Force a joke in good cheer
Falling flat in quiet still fear
Dream of a girl dear
Will you make it through this year
Or bring her a tear
Blistered weary
Eyes watering bleary
Dry eyed then teary
Knights in white satin
Just gettin’ a suntan
Humping this land
Swords wielding in my country’s name
Whether for infamy
For shame
Or a righteous heroes fame
Swords swung for citizenry of the world
To thwart spilling innocent blood unfurled
In sacred promise
This major premise
Where moralities compromise
I surmise
These knights in white satin
All-American titan.
Just tryin’ to survive
This blood-letting alive
Make it back to the land of the giant PX
Gonna watch my six
'Cause ain't no cure for the humpalong blues
You're not careful with your virtues
It'll rob you of your values

our ride to the war

blowing VietCopng bunker system
men at war laugh at Duc Pho
From left, men in positions 1 and 3 front,
killed two weeks after this picture was taken.



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