Please wait for music "Nowhere Man," before scrolling down!
Oh Lord, I want to go back home.
But I don't know if I can ever go back home.
Though this life is sometimes too much to bear,
I don't know if they're ready for me back there.
I'm not the fair haired boy that left.
Killing and blood have left my soul
Of civility bereft.
But who can leave all this,
Sand in the eye of the storm bliss?
My assigned bunkers sand bag roof
May not be quite rain proof,
But at Betty, what an opulent delight,
Not to have to dig a foxhole every night.
And sandy floors make a bed just right.
Here, I hardly ever have to fight.
Can you believe it,
The fear of it used to keep me up all night.
Sand bags make a most excellent building material,
Built to deflect with ease raining shrapnel.
Why, I hardly ever with VC here have to grapple.
Did you know sand bags repel grenades?
Betty's concertina wire discourages VC raids,
Holding down those black pajama parades.
Its razor wire
Makes Mr. Charles from a distance fire.
LZ Betty has clear fire zones for my friendly claymore.
Could a groundpounding grunt ask for more?
Combat infantrymen are treated by nature
To the good life Vietnam picture tour.
Heat, sun, black scorpions, poisonous two-step adders,
Ground pounders solemnly abjure,
But must learn to endure,
Feted by friendly, neighborhood VietCong,
Who would never, never, ever do you wrong.
Your very existence Charley would like to repudiate,
By hate expropriate.
Your sorry life blood he would gladly appropriate,
Your very being abrogate...
Fervently your way to Hell expedite
Life in LZ Betty is at best insecure,
A life on the edge unsure
A future of life and death totally obscure.
You know, Charley is really a swell kind of guy!
Just thinking of him makes me want to cry.
That must be why my lips get razor grim,
Thinking of him...
Dreaming of him...
Reliving my dance of death with him...
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LZ Betty's a wonderful beach front property,
Where Charley hosts this little party.
All LZ Betty’s neighbors festoon their front yards,
With sharpened bamboo shards,
Criss-crossed punji stakes...
That one little prick your whole day makes.
Dipped in human excrement for goodness sakes,
That the more severe infection creates.
But this Okie with a rifle,
Is not someone with whom to trifle.
Though betimes LZ Betty’s just a day at the beach,
Around the body of which VC sappers cling like a leach.
Its Monsoon rains fill your foxhole,
Swimming with snakes, lizards and fist sized spiders,
Unwelcome visitors not at all neat,
Not exactly my idea of a treat.
Charley, outside LZ Betty's always waiting,
A pesky devil persevering,
To reach out and touch someone,
With sniper bullet at setting sun
When the long day is done...
Or to greet an LZ Betty sunrise
With a popping little surprise!
At LZ Betty no one can hear
The little boy screaming...
His soul withering...
Finally dying...
each poem with more action
graphics and Pictures
from the lens of a combat infantryman!
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This site is covered by U.S. Copyright Laws "Vietnam Picture Tour," all pictures and poems © 1999 by Gary Jacobson