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UncleRiverine Vietnam's Verdant Jungle A combat grunt

by Gary Jacobson
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From off the South China Sea hot east winds blow
Upon sandbag bunkers lined all in a row
Wafting over a verdant green jungle war of hate
Over shifting sands where hostilities profligate
We boys greet each morning, tempting bitter fate,
In a land over the decades killings perpetuate.

Green grows the variegated jungle over fallen ghosts
Who once humped rice paddies of Vietnam hosts,
Like the jungle, shades of life here are variegated,
According to our sergeants very life's overrated
As we patrol the verdant green park
Chalky sweat roiling down faces honeydewed bark
Living in monsoon rains from daydawn into dark...

Politicians took up this quarrel with the Vietcong foe,
Sent a nation of boys where the brave dare not go
Courageously into the land of the gun
Irrepressible heat wilting under the hot Vietnamese sun
Taught to hate and kill, what will our future bestow,
In Vietnam’s green verdant jungle grow?

Do we dead still feel that ancient quarrel
Putting all loving in peril,
When war’s horrors revisit, lock, stock and barrel?
Heat, death and fear vie for attention
Darkest hour Memories held for a lifetime introspection
Forever mocking with deceitful refrain
Breaking faith, our cruel death was in vain.

Fighting in Nam’s jungles in our mind still raves.
Nam’s verdant jungle marks our poor graves,
As our country its warriors now sometimes depraves.
Though doves over meadows of our mind’s eye
Still bravely with honor fly,
With songs they are singing refuting wars great lie.

We lived to make it back from that land of ghosts,
Our inner voice now incredulously boasts,
Though guilts abound from pillar to post.
Still every night we're back there,
Again with our buddies heartaches to share,
Again in that bitter heated wind,
Wafting perpetually off the South China Sea coast.

OldGlory
Vietcong 3guns
Picasso_FaceOfPeace
Picasso's Face Of Peace

War’s Tome Liberty Bell
by Gary Jacobson

Whenever on foreign soil in wars far from home,
Remember this scholarly book of war tome...
Wherever in brave battle the liberty bell has rung
Wherever heroic brave heroes have war songs sung,
A world of heroes will always,
Always die young....
And old men who have lived through war’s gory hell,
Will forevermore be haunted
By death’s terrorizing knell!


Clueless
by Gary Jacobson

A year in Nam is a year in hell,
All things conspiring to make life swell.
At any given moment, Charley will engage,
With a home field advantage,
For in the Nam, weather is a weapon,
Charley often calls upon
Monsoons flood, mud and blood,
Making you dodge the bullet
With your name on it
Forever drenched to the skin
In the clammy night freezing,
Forever struggling,
Forever sweating,
Forever fearing,
Life’s values forevermore queering,
Forever fighting to regain control,
Spirits wildly careening.

Yet pundits back home say,
In a most scholarly, objective way.
"I've looked at your life in Nam selectively,
Its duration assessed quantitatively,
And it seems quite plain to me,
You see,
You win some,
And you lose some...

You must not dwell on it.
I completely understand it,
The fears relapsing through the years.
I know when you came home,
You didn't hear many cheers.
I know we weren't there for you then.
And for that I apologise
I truly sympathize...
But just let go of it.
Holding onto memories won’t do any good a bit.
It’s such a simple thing to do,
Turn your mind to something new."

But how can you let go,
When you’ve walked through the valley shadowed?
When beside still waters of death you've strolled,
Nam's blood forever scarring the soul,
Wreaking a deadly, daily toll.

How can some people be so “clueless,”
So mindless,
So utterly droll?
Don't they really know?
Makes me wish they had been the ones
To Vietnam had to go!
Who can ever know,
They might not have lost their lives there,
Just their sanity...
Their friends...
Their innocence...
Their values...
Their love for fellow man...
Their trust in government...
Their trust in authority...
Their faith...

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