Poems
by Phil Blake, HHC and A Company,
1966-1967
We
Went To War
We went to war in
We went to war in
“We must stop the
commies there, the first domino,
For if we do not
fight them there, we’ll fight in
So we packed our
duffle bags and in a plane we flew,
To a far off land and
ugly war to see what we could do,
To help the people of
the south repel the Viet Cong,
And chase away the
NVA who’d come to do them wrong.
We went ‘cause we
were soldiers and that’s what soldiers do,
When ordered by their
government, elected all by you.
We did not want to
leave behind our children and our wives,
And some men paid the
awful price of giving up their lives.
We fought our foe so
faithfully in forests and in towns,
We knew that if
united we’d finally bring him down,
But back at home some
citizens got tired of the fight,
And thought that
helping allies just really wasn’t right.
Some young men
decided to make love instead of war,
So off they went to
We’d like to’ve gone
with them except we’d made a vow,
To fight our
country’s battles the best that we knew how.
We make no claim to
the hero name, that isn’t our intent;
We’d rather just
remind you that when told to go we went.
We were proud to
serve our country wherever we were sent,
But next time we are
called upon, we’ll take the president!
Grunt Memories
1965-1973
We who fought in Vietnam are old now,
the captains, lieutenants, sergeants, privates,
young men then strong in body in spirit;
even the youngest when it ended are old now.
But we remember. In our dreams and reveries
we are still there, still amid the mud and dust,
the rains and paddies, leeches and immersion foot,
endless marches in sweat-soaked fatigues.
We remember the monotony of meals from
little brown cans; the weary waiting for slicks
to lift us up to new AO's; of day after dreary
day; yearning for mail, for R and R, for DEROS.
We remember the shock of sudden fire,
the fear; the thrill, the god-awful noise,
the confusion, the exhilaration, then the grief,
wrapping friends in ponchos for their final flight.
We remember calling for artillery fire,
for armed choppers, for close air support,
for re-supply, for dust-off, for information,
for hot chow, and for replacements.
We remember insect repellent and malaria pills;
purification tablets to keep us from bad water;
trip flares and claymores to protect us from Charlie;
nights on ambushes and days defending a fire base.
We remember floating high above the jungle,
the mountains, the villages, in flights of hueys,
our legs dangling outside, relishing the coolness
and the view, wondering if LZ will be "hot".
We remember leaping out with over-loaded packs,
rolling, running, crawling for cover as we
fired at an unseen enemy, while supporting
fires burst around the LZ and beyond.
We remember finally the freedom bird
that returned us to "the world," the unfamiliarity
of being clean, cold cokes and round eyed
stewardesses, our final flight to home, to peace.
We remember all these things and more,
as though it happened yesterday, in our dreams,
in our reveries, sometimes as we watch our grandchildren,
and we wonder: does