Although the war in Vietnam ended in April of 1974, I have never really gotten over my combat experiences,
but when I took Dr. Pat Bizarro's Advanced Poetry class in 1990, I was
able to come to grips with some of my emotions and came up with a poem.
Here are some links
that may be helpful to others:
War Poetry page (coming
soon; maybe not--the poem was written 10-12 years ago, and it helped me deal
with 'Nam. I'm not sure if I'm ready to let the world into that part of my
heart...)
BTW, if anyone knows the
whereabouts of Pres (short for Presley) or Prez (he wasn't really an Elvis
wannabe, but we did have a C.O. who was the bodyguard for Led Zepplin,
but that was Igor, not to be confused with Curly, who was the X.O., but
that's a different story), who was my hooch-mate for a while and the CH-46
pilot who picked up the U. S. ambassador from the roof of the embassy in
Saigon (you may have seen the Pulitzer Prize winning photo), please let
me know. Also, it would be nice to hear about Tuba Man (he was also a '46
pilot; the San Diego Padres had asked him to return for their season opener
in 1974--he was a real crowd arouser when he'd play his tuba and march
around the stands--but Operation Eagle Pull kept him from doing so).
