bambooblk


Please do not start to scroll down until you hear the song Rumai...


Jinks_Flag

Flag Artwork by a combat veteran brother Jinks

Morning After The Battle

A hot vietnam sun rises on the morning after battle...

[Reveille.—The call at the break of day, telling soldier’s it is
time to rise and prepare for the duties of the day.]


Though there was no playing of reveille in the field, we indeed heeded the silent call to rise early, and be about the affairs of the day ... for to do so was truly life or death.


Nam's Reveillee
eaglehead by Gary Jacobson © 1999eaglehead
No trumpeting of bugles come blaring
To greet Nam’s morning beaming.
No brassy sound
Heralds a new day found,
Just rising heat simmering,
In sultry waves shimmering,
One lonely voice, calling...
Good Morning Vietnam!

No trumpeting comes from jungle's steaming,
Somberly haunting in the gleaming,
Emulated from wearied eyes awakening,
Sent in competing greeting to the dawn
Bugling the start of day ever long.
Ever rising over boys in the Nam sweltering
Good morning to Vietnam sighing,
For life crying,
In dreams still dreaming,
Restlessly of loved ones far and away,
Transported back to "the world" from Nam’s glorious day.

“Good Morning Vietnam!
The lonesome sound wafts softly,
Painfully, slowly, inexorably
Rising over parched souls worshipping the gun,
Over eyes watching rising sun,
Sonorously creeping,
Comes a seeping,
Almost a moaning.

Morning sun crests hypnotically,
An incantation building,
On perfumed air hanging,
Over morning’s dews tempestuously wailing,
To boys adventuring heralding,
Harkening...Shouting in glory
Combat infantrymen lost in a neverending sad story.

“Good Morning Vietnam!
Why ya been away so long?
Croon “Boys next door” preparing
For a fight forevermore fighting.
Long into their graves the guns hearing...
Good Morning Vietnam!

It's not a soldiers place to go asking why,
Just theirs to try,
You know, do or die.
Soldiers battle constantly,
War's rife with inanity,
Telling tales remembered of war’s insanity,
Laughing at man's inhumanity,
An ever darkning stain on a man's bravery
Just boys fulfilling patriotism's duty!

“Good Morning Vietnam!
Why ya been away so long?
Cry boys from the bottom of foxholes suddenly
Who've hugged dirt thru night fears abruptly
Holding tools of destruction most ably,
Grown old irrevocably,
Before their time Divine...
Perilously in free-fall mortal decline.

“Good Morning Vietnam!
Good morning war's grand immorality
Brave strategy now bent awkwardly
Robbing day-by-day immortality
American boys, fair youth's innocently
Who fought with great faith amorally,
Wearily succumbed to hate, inevitability,
These immortal soldier’s souls
Dug to forever in their fighting holes.

Morning's wounded evacuation
When morning comes the wounded are air-evac'd...

“Good Morning Vietnam!
They say loudly to day's salutation's lamenting,
Of night’s back in “the world” dreaming.
Fantasies long since passing
Today’s war lessons in horrors vexing
Surly castles in the air Killing
Sacred silence Killing
Fearing killing...
Souls killing...
Innocence killing!

Wonder not where the body bags are.
Nobody knows where they are...
But when they're needed here,
They miraculously appear
Tight sleeves to hold in the bleeding,
Hold in the boys dreaming,
Enveloping sacred souls
At rest now from battle's woes.

“Good Morning Vietnam!
Cries discarded war's wreaking flotsam
Grim battle scarred Jetsam.
Do you still remember them?
Do you honor them?
The one's who gave their lives for you
That you might a bright future imbue.
Future's lost now, around them floating,
Then suddenly sacred peace careening,
Then suddenly beings ascending,
Carried away from contentions roiling,
In the heat of battle boiling,
As day burns off mists into long night vanishing.
soldiers in silhouette


“Good Morning Vietnam!
Do you hear the language of guns fatal report,
Hated battle's sounding retort,
Memories fixed on the unchanging infantry heart.
Boys bid sad farewell as battle stars gradually fade,
A sweating night of fears fondly laid
Ere day summons renewal to combat’s fray
At dazzling approach of each glorious day.

“Good Morning Vietnam!
This is the nature of war,
Politicians safely home say they abhor,
Blazing weapons preaching gospel's of hate
Preparing to kill boys lined against you irate.
In love and hope riseth trust
Unholy faith from the dust.
About you now in killing moods,
Rancoring in boy’s souls forevermore broods.

“Good Morning Vietnam!
Morn's not so peaceful dawn

The mornings not so peaceful dawning...

Khe Sanh Pass
Khe Sanh Pass...

soldier statue My Battlefield soldier statue
by Gary Jacobson © 1999

Once upon a time
There was once a most discordant rhyme.
Once this verdant turf heard battle’s roar,
Ten thousand malignant souls...maybe more!
Rushed through battlefields thickened lore
Writhing in death throes bloody gore
In distant days of bloody yore
A jungle now grown very, very still,
With silence still evermore.

Once this gentle land
Heard on every hand
The anguished cry of angry men,
Bore seething fires hot within the breasts of them...
Committed to killing mid rancorous din,
Knowing in stories writers pen
Killing is God’s greatest sin.
Still in memory to eulogize
Times of hatred and brotherhood memorialize,
Times of adventure in hell conceptualize.

Once these burning sands felt a warrior’s trod,
Now silent death lies just under the perfumed sod,
In a triple tiered jungle under God.
Where rivulets of fiery hearts once bloodied ground,
Carried clamorous,
Boisterous,
Deafening gory battlefield sound,
Hue and shouts ringing round
And around...

A harsh, unpleasant sound greening jungles enshroud
Concealed by a bamboo thicket cloud
Yet hovers over the battlefield’s contentious crowd.
Shall we now forget the blood of the brave,
Shed there...
Shall we forget lives that honor gave...
Who bled and died there...
How it gushed warm with hope yet,
Rescuing “The World” from foul despots depraved
With courage met...
Proud young men saved.
Swords of the righteous slain bearing
That banners of peace might forever wave...
Over this land, now calm, fresh, still...
Battle’s din lost in the sound
Of tortured rock and rill.
A solemn host goes trailing by,
Hearing no black mouthed gun at battlefield’s cry.

Let them never be heard again
Till this world has met it's end.


MarineReconForce
Marine Recon force...
John Wilson killed in action 12 days later.

A combat grunt Die A Brave Soldier
by Gary Jacobson © 1999

Once over war’s decade lingering long,
Stood an innocent hero hearing death's final song
Clinging desparately to life in wild weaponed throng
Surrounded by enemies front, flank, and rear
No front to fall behind here,
Wearisome death creeping ever near...
Made a final peace his soul to cleanse
Every nerve, fiber and sinew tense
Steeled to fight for the right
To survive the night...
Without question or pause recompensed
American freedom’s nobility that bore him sensed
His service a love of country proof,
From honor, bravery stood not aloof.
Just a boy far from home, fainting not,
Blanching not,
A call to arms his chosen lot,
Engaging our countries foe for the victor’s crown
Willing for God and country to lay young lives down.
Now, though we lay bleeding
From war's toils a dying
His blood but patriotisms rust,
Shed for indignant cause just,
A soldier’s fitting death, bleeding in the dust
The good fight in courage trust.

I pray grievous death was not in vain,
That my dying earned “the world” a peaceful refrain.
We hear death’s knell for the last time pealed
Passing to another's hand, freedom’s sword to wield,
Another hand liberty’s standard never to yield
Forever may it wave,
In blast of freedom’s triumph o'er my innocent grave.
For a soldier’s purpose in life’s garden bears
Responsibility to weed out evil tares,
So peace can grow,
Forevermore over the world to blow,
Universal love in its fullness know,
God’s goodness in wisdom bestow...


Click the Combat Infantry Badge
Combat Infantry Badge
for my Vietnam Poetry page index,
each poem with more action Pictures.

CLICK CHOPPERS TO CARRY YOU BACK TO
Vietnam Picture Tour
VIETNAM PICTURE TOUR!
Vote for "Vietnam Picture Tour,"
as a top military site,
and sign my guestbook here.