Poems about vietnam

Twenty or twenty-one. All volunteers. Barely women.
Straight from school in a thousand small towns.
Straight into the mud and blood and madness.
We dragged our dying to their open arms.
Twelve hours shifts; often more. Wreckage of violence.
Round eyes. Smiles that healed. Hearts that broke.
Girls treating boys. Telling the necessary lies.
You're OK. You're fine. You're going home.
Valor danced in their faces. Lips that spoke hope.
Old now or dead. But forever young and alive
In the memories of 150, 000 wounded soldiers
They saved and sent back to the world.
~mce

Sadly,
You can take the boy
Out of the jungle,
But you can
Never
Take the jungle
Out of the boy.
- mce

Vietnam

A terrible time for our country
The fear of what was called
The domino effect
Communism would be at our doorstep
If we did not stop the North Vietnamese

It was our own freedom
We were told that hung in the balance

We sent our young men
They fought
Many died
Others crippled and those who were fortunate enough
To simply make home
Became the victims of a nation
That showed no support for the soldier

But the war was not about our freedom

It was about fear

Fear that traveled throughout our government
That we could be next

Of course history now shows
That was not the intent of the North
All they wanted was their country reunified

Our boys came home
The nation turned its back on them
Many today still live in the streets
As do present day returnees from the middle east wars

It was the Vietnam veteran
Who vowed
Never to let another vet go unappreciated

The people have learned
But sadly
The government hasn't

The fear they have now
Is the loss of profits
They continue to send
Other peoples children
Off to war that for these youg men
And now women
Holds death and dismemberment
Without giving those fortunate enough to return home
Proper care and support

Today is so different from yesterday

Yesterday
The people spat upon the returning soldier

Today
It is the spittle of the government that they wear

The pain
Just doesn't go away,
Seems we have to
Deal with Charlie everyday.
So many triggers,
In our heads that make us
Wonder if,
We would be better off dead.

We live from
Day to day,
Some hour to hour,
Wondering what to say
To those who just can't
Understand the pain
And sorrow that we feel,
As a combat Veteran.

We are a band of brothers
Who stepped up, stood up proud,
And went to War
For a Country we loved,
Only to return to a Country
Full of hate and disrespect.

Vietnam Veterans
Continue to take their own lives
Daily, some 40 years later
Because some are tired
Of fighting the War in their heads,
And fighting for help,
From a Gov't
That doesn't seem to care.
We are tired of asking for respect,
Because we stood up for your freedom.

We still wait for just
For one sincere "thank you",
Or a true "wellcome home",
That we never got,
Better late than never for some,
Just a little too late
For me and many others.

Some 58, 000
Gave their all, most
Still in their youth but
Old enough to die,
For a War that was just a big lie,
And all they got was
Their name on a Wall.

Those of us who survived
Still fight the triggers in our heads,
And try to help those brothers
Who would rather be dead,
Those fellow warriors
With so much pain
That they feel as if
They have nothing to gain.

Self respect takes away
Some of that pain,
But we have to heal
From the inside first.

But for now
We heal at the Wall
And touch our brothers
And friends who gave it all,
Those who dared to
Stand tall
For your freedom. Jon York

I love you man
A Story From Nam

We were seventeen or eighteen in Nam
We became friends forever.
No more than friends.
Soldiers get closer than wives.
We went to sleep saying
I love you man.
We switched letters
For our girlfriends.
In case... well just in case.

The bullets rained
In the clearing that night.
I can still see the tracer lights.
Guys fell down all around me.
Crying everywhere.
Air power cleared them away.

I looked for Joe he was lay there.
I held him close
Like a baby as he left us.
His last words
I love you man.
I whispered to him
Not as much
As I love you Man
.
I did not notice I had been hit.
After six months I returned home.
In West Virginia his beautiful girl
Opened the door of a small trailer.
She had a baby boy in her arms.
Her blue eyes welled with tears.
I passed the unopened letter to her.
I lied and said the blood
On it was mine.

She passed the baby
To me to hold
As she read the letter.
I kissed his tiny forehead.
And said see buddy
You're not dead at all
I love you Man

It is STILL THE SAME for a Vietnam combat Veteran and
I am sixty-nine and it has been forty-seven years since I
Returned home to America after standing up for our flag
And fulfilling my job which was to kill and as a highly
Trained Marine that is exactly what I did for 13 months,
Taking many lives every day and at the end of the day all
That we could say is how many did we kill today?

They called us grunts and side by side we fought and died
Fighting a war that we thought we could win and every day
And night it took all our training to survive and side by side
We fought for our flag as many of our friends returned
Home in a body bag.

Seems like I write about Veterans Day every year and here
In 2017 IT IS STILL THE SAME for Vietnam combat
Veterans: we lived through the war, now we die at home,
We are suicide soldiers who beat the odds, but we die alone
Without our squads, and we totally look forward to death,
So we can find peace and we can get some rest.

IT IS STILL THE SAME: we can never forget the eyes, the
Death rattling sounds that our mind seeks to drown and
The labored breathing and vacant lifeless eyes of life loss
That we despise as we spend a lifetime with segmented
Visions of memory recalling death and life in vivid color
Images because with death and dying you never forget
The eyes, friend or foe and we still hear their cries.

2017 at home IS NOT THE SAME for there are those who
Refuse to stand for our flag and continue to disrespect our
Country and those who fought and died for it and to those
Who choose not to stand can just get out of my land that
I stood up and fought for called America.
Jon York 2017
USMC Vietnam 69-70

Graceful predator perched on the precipice of woe
Your satin crown, ebony feathers cannot camouflage mision of misery you'll sow
Your balmy wings caress as dark shadows grow
You sharpen your talons lethal grasp your helpless prey to show
But only quicken the hearts of foragers nestled below
Shrill call does not alarm wary prey; only emboldened, novel defenses bestow
Slower prey their extended units disband; bountiful feast now in escrow
Stealthy ears pick up the feigned, stressful calls of dispossessed lying low
The harried remnant recedes into veiled canopy with their cargo
Confident dive bomber, you plunge into the shielded canopy mayhem to strew
Only to have pleated wings torn by thistle, thorn guarding the undertow
Injured, but deadly weapons your armada still doth tow
With sharp beak you shred the stragglers who venture into twilight's afterglow
With bristling talons you scratch and claw causing stiffened backs to bow
But their desire to live trumps marauding havoc laid in stow
Shorn of limb but not of hope, scurrying from nest to nest to and fro
Storm clouds gather over Dover cliffs; thunderous chorus from nest doth bellow
On the sparring range, a docile, prevailing wind no longer doth blow
Wearied from long chase, depleted eagle from bleeding strand doth go

(10/13/12)

At the beginning of “64” - I packed up my uniform
And walked out the door- it was the beginning of
The Vietnam war.
By August of that same year
President Johnson started the draft
Under protests and jeers.

Then he made it a full scale war
And sent our soldiers to Vietnam shores.
The Beatniks in Greenwich village
With their long hair, beards, and
Flip flop sandals - wrote their poetry
About this undeclared war, and why
Our men were going to those shores.

This created a new generation called �HIPPIES”
The hippie generation was groups of protesters
Against everything that they found wrong
The draft, the war, pollution
And loved to stay high with pot, hashish
Coke and acid (lsd) which kept them blasted.

This also created the “ flower children”
Who like the hippies loved to be high
And on certain flowers they would fly.
But they spoke of loving one another
And gave out flowers as a sign of peace
Which to the president was a relief.

They all started painting this “53 Chevy impala”
With the words “ flower power”.
Now the “ flower children and hippie movement
Was in full swing, and everyone was doing their own thing.

They had Greenwich village under their control
And not one coffee shop would ever be sold.
Every coffee shop had a poetry night
And going there was such a delight.

Then in AUGUST of “69”
The WOODSTOCK festival was on the rise
Over half a million people drove to that farmland
And set up tents, hammocks, sleeping bags and such
And the police found it was much to much
So they had no choice but to see it through
Because there was nothing else that they could do.

The WOODSTOCK festival had become world wide
And to this day it still thrives.

© L. RAMS