BACK THEN
Intelligence never got much further than Saigon
or a short trip to Da Nang
most of us served in the States
far behind enemy lines
victims of the big lie that we were saving
the world from the “commie” hordes
I remember one time
I interviewed a young Marine
a victim of the Tet Offensive
He talked about throwing Cong out of helicopters
after interrogations, claimed the nightmares
left him sleepless
kept seeing all those faces in on between the walls
said buddies of his sent home drugs
concealed inside body bags
but no one believed him
tiny pieces of flesh hitting him in the face
blood between what was left of his chewed off fingernails
and fragging a Lieutenant kept haunting him
Intelligence said he could not be trusted
he was either a Section Eight case
or perhaps just wanted out of the military
so they gave him a three-day pass
just to play it safe and set him up with
an appointment with a V.A. Shrink
A week later they found his body
down by the Beach Chalet
behind a forgotten old W.W. 2 bunker
dead and soon to be forgotten
a product of societal induced guilt
all the traps of a midnight slaughterhouse
of smoking guns from a criminal war machine
of the rich and mighty inside a cancerous womb
rotting like overripe fruit in a ghetto dumpster