I’m just a grunt
A hound dog Uncle Sam sent to enemies hunt
Decreed by fate predestined, to be blunt
To brave Satan and his legions brunt
Flung from the mouth of guns and fear
Ordained to lead the charge on the point of the spear
Death’s first gurgling sound to hear
Just beasts of war backpacking verdant Eden
Bearing the blood and guts of fighting’s burden.
I’m just a grunt
In truth forsooth, always at battle’s front
In war’s story the heroic protagonist
Seeking Nam’s contentious antagonist
Humping the parks fragrant jungle glen
Where killing first is no sin
Hearing discordant cannon’s roaring din
Searching for wily Viet Cong
Hunting shadowy fugitives all day long.
I’m just a grunt
Haggard and gaunt
First to face an enemy ogre’s taunt
His daunting evil discouraging
Things seen and done forever haunting
Taking his blood up close and personal on my spear
Sobbing tears crying with anguish firsthand hear
Facing in the pit of my soul fear
Dreaming of things back in the world held dear.
I’m just a grunt, America's choicest seed
Delivering the birth of democracy's creed
With eye of an eagle and a lion's heart
Brave liberty bravely impart
With strong back and mighty brawn
War’s emaciated and haggard pawn
pell-mell into the battle's maw drawn
Bearing steely nerve and fiber’s sinew
My surly courage bleeds red, white and blue
Sent to fight with all that’s in you.
I’m just a grunt
On the hellish side of gaunt
Smiling through lips tight as barbed-wire
Proffering my guns for hire
Going where conditions are dire
A walking munitions dump
Sent the valley of death to hump
Through war’s cordite pungent smell
I give a primal savage yell.
I’m just a grunt
Forevermore faces of men I’ve killed will haunt
Dreaming of that night of awful fire and brimstone noise
Possessed by the sight of bulwarks manned by youthful boys
Oblivious to Charlie’s lustily leering taunt
Heedless of this gambit through hell jaunt
Every night I birds of steel remount
To fly again to war on an iron steed stout
Fallen brothers in mud and blood recount.
I’m just a grunt
Without me there would be no blodletting war brunt
For with eagle eye of a marksman supreme
I tell tall tales of infamy in mud and blood extreme
Put on for awhile a warrior's savage mask
Travel back to the world of fear to bask
Stained forever by war’s bloodthirsty task
Forevermore to questions ask...
Why did my brother have to die and not I? Why?
Hell, I don't know ... I’m just a grunt
Who still every night fights for the body count
Still searching for rhyme or reason
Still dancing with war’s fiendish demon
Still seeing dead brother’s faces
Cacophonous battle vibration's in my blood still races
Back to the fires the cradle of my heart sear
Forevermore sounds of battle fatigue I fear
Drowned only in another round of beer.
Iron horses on the winds of war fly
Propelled through sweet-and-sour sky
Delivering men into the maw of voracious war
Into the gullet of that bestial carnivore
Iron Cobras prepping the way before
With salvoes from the Jolly Green Giant
Strategic firepower to make Cong compliant
These horrific Iron birds of prey
Deliver grunts to pave the way.
Iron horses on the winds of war fly
To carry boys where they might die
Picking up angry, frightened man
Accosting them on blazing infernos in Vietnam
Silently bewailing lathered curses
So wearied by purifying fear catharses
Sent to foul cankerous legions grievously abused
Sorely wounded in body and spirit bruised
By belligerent serpent’s who horror infused.
Iron horses on the winds of war fly
Carrying boys into purgatory
With life as they know it on the edge of remission
Wagering life or death their combat mission...
Iron horses fly into the jaws of hell with saviors
Freedom’s fiercest sons, our combat warriors
Down in throes of death, about to be overrun
In this land of the vile gun
The jungle heart of the burning sun.
Iron horses on the winds of war fly
Sent to carry them home through a buttermilk sky
To carry them back from the ravages of war
To a home of sandbags
Carry reverently home the holy bodybags...
But the cruelest cut of all in the battle's misty pall
Comes when iron horses carry defiant weary sages
Not home, but to other places where war yet rages
To yet another mission with combat entourages.
On the winds of war fly Iron Horses
Where withering fire before them disburses
From battle’s bloodiest attacks
Mid rockets red glare come the medevacs
Come to drag the brave dead into body bags
Clean up fragged motley blood and rags
Valiant boys decimated by belligerent scallywags
Record egregiously each fallen warrior’s nametag
Carry gallant men home under a proud country’s flag.
Click the Combat Infantry Badge
to Visit my Vietnam Poems index,
each poem with more action
graphics and Pictures
CLICK TO VISIT... Through pictures and poetry take a walk in "the park" with the 1st Air Cavalry on combat patrol. Experience the chilling reality that will give you the taste of "the Nam" on your tongue, leave the pungent smell of "the Nam" in your nostrils, and imbed textures of "the Nam" in your brain as though you were walking beside me in combat.
Click the Combat Infantry Badge