I've been slowly wending my way through Barbara Tuchman's "The March of Folly," a book examining moments in history when nations or powers pursued policies counter to their own self-interest. She begins in prehistory with Troy and Rehoboam, then looks at the Renaissance Popes who unintentionally prodded the Reformation into being, the British losing of America, and now America in Vietnam.
Without getting too bogged down in the history, the parallels and implications for the 21st century, here's a poem I found recently that has some bearing. The author was a GI in Vietnam who began writing poetry to examine some of his experiences there and ultimately committed suicide, in part because of his horrific memories. It's not a perfect poem by any means, but it's worth paying attention to.
The Grenading
B.D. Trail
dedicated to Captain Nguyen Van Te, 2nd ARVN Infantry Division;
and to Dock Burke, “life-time friend”
with the captured rifle sling
glancing proudly at us,
his American advisors.
An uninteresting event to everyone
except the boy who silently cringed
and shook from blow to blow.
In the madness of the war
today was near-to-normal.
There had been the usual dance to snipers,
the suck-up in the chest,
the dash across manioc fields,
the crack and whip of bullets
in time with running feet.
Looking at the photos now,
the sand is light like snow.
But then, the sand was griddle-hot
and hard to run across.
And there had been the usual harassment
of the villagers,
the pig killings and gold tooth grinnings
of the chicken thieves,
the stolen rice boiling in black cauldrons.
In our little corner of the war
the major beat the boy,
we Americans smoked cigarettes,
the Vietnamese village women cooked rice
for ARVNs down on the ground
spread out in casual circles.
The stick grenade was lobbed out of a bunker
with all the surety and disguised slowness
of a softball. And it seemed to move towards
a cookfire with measured, casual directness.
A village woman heavy in her pregnancy
caught the rolling blast of the grenade.
The fragments plunged into the soldiers.
For her the blast was a sonic scalpel
slicing, filleting, cutting
deep, deep into her belly.
Something clicks in time of crisis,
a switch to surreal slow motion.
We Americans froze in place
while the Vietnamese,
as if coming up for air,
floundered and fumbled.
Still half-frame, the image slowed
to show her baby,
her corded baby,
ease ooze
from her fish-gutted belly
and fall into the fire.
The madness was not just the fetus in the fire.
No, that was just a novelty-of-horrors.
to men who had seen minings and other mutilations.
The madness was the mother was still alive.
Split from throat to crotch,
the mother was alive and
screaming screaming screaming
I didn’t shoot her and I don’t know why.
No one shot her. And she kept on
screaming screaming screaming.
Dragged over the white-hot sand
on a red-wet poncho,
she screamed for two hours on the landing zone.
She died before a helicopter came.
I died back at the fire.
No comments:
Post a Comment