A Poem - Viet Nam

The following was written by my Son.  He performed it at the 2012 "Louder Than A Bomb" poetry competition in Chicago as part of the Coaches bout.  I was in the audience.  I didn't know about the poem.  I was stunned, and proud, and cried.   My Son teaches high school in Chicago and coaches poetry after school.  He guides young minds to seek truth in an area of Chicago that some say is "bad". He is a realists.  He understands that if you give kids an opportunity to become exceptional, they will be. 

  

Viet Nam

(Dedicated to my Dad, Arnold Stieber)

You say it all came back in an evening

In front of the TV

Winter 2003

Iraq war about to start

Platoon was on

You had not let yourself go there since ‘70

You let yourself go there that night

You say it all came back

You could see it

Hear it

Smell it

9/11 might have triggered it

The invasion in Iraq rekindled it

But Hollywood

Platoon

Brought it back

Knew growing up you were in Vietnam

Wasn’t really sure what that meant

Knew you were in war but never discussed

Couldn’t play guns, cops and robbers, GI Joe

Knew that was the rule

Told some friends you were in war

Another dad had been too

He didn’t talk about it

Heard he had changed when he got back

Didn’t know if you had

Other friends asked about the guns you used

People you killed

Like in the movies

Never did ask

Still don’t want to

So in 2003 you started talking about it

Little by little

I was 22 and felt like 5

Learning about you for the first time

Stories always pretty general

Nothing too specific

Keeping Vietnam at a distance

You had graduated college got drafted

Never thought you'd be infantry

Stories of basic training

You spoke with a clergy man in the army

You said killing didn’t seem christrian

Clergy said country first

You were trained to kill

Targets that looked like targets

Targets that moved

Targets like humans

Humans that looked like targets

Humans that move

Humans

Stories of Agent Orange

Fragging of “superiors"

R&R in Austrialia

Christmas in Nam so you could come home quicker

Slurs for the enemy

How soldiers used women

Coping mechanisms to keep sanity

Before you started researching/reading/questioning

A friend former soldier told you not to go down that path

Let it be

You had to go down that path

Now you speak/write/converse

You talk to soldiers home from Iraq/Afghanistan

Stories from them too similar to yours

You see their ghosts

Motivates you to talk to teens about the realities of war/military

Some people don’t want to hear your voice/words/writing

Say things like - your dad is the only soldier I know who feels like that

Other soldiers they know don’t talk or complain about war/death/killing

They don’t know other soldiers back from war

Are killing/over dosing/abusing themselves

War veterans have the highest suicide rate

You told me you thought about it

Soldiers are trained to kill/survive war

Not retrained on how to survive after war

So many don’t talk

You tell me

America teaches that war is necessary

Many soldiers have to believe what they did was necessary

Yet you speak out

Many soldiers fear saying the things they did/saw out loud

Fear of saying what happened may make loved ones distant

That no one can understand what was “normal” unless they were there

You teach me that for a soldier to speak out against war is difficult

  

You say war is slavery

In 1969 you had three choices

Jail

Leaving the country but knowing you couldn’t return

Or War

You said you weren’t brave enough for the first two

People need to know this

So you speak

I know it’s not easy to do what you do

But I thank you for the difficult path you choose

Soon I will be a dad 

I have your path to follow

It‘s easy to sit back

Believe what you are told

It is difficult to do what you believe

At 22 I started becoming a man

Because you started teaching me what that means