Remembering Vietnam
Vietnam
Was my jolly green place
Where I met
War’s hot and mean face…
Not from deadly bullets,
Zinging close by my head,
But from hospital visits
To those wounded instead.
Not from dead comrades
Dying there in my arms
But from friends struggling
With mental war harms.
Not from living long,
Ferocious fire-fights,
But from the living terror
Of others’ hind sights.
Not from bad memories,
Still burdening my mind,
But the fits given to some -
Home, but still left behind.
Jim Hale
Veterans Day, 2009
***********************
Jim Hale
Principal Broker / Owner
Graduate, REALTOR Institute e-PRO
2012 Member, Million Dollar Club of Lane County
2012 Member, Real Estate Brokers Million Dollar Club
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Jim, I did not serve in Vietnam but lost one cousin there and another who lives here in New Orleans but never came home. Just about all of my family has serve proudly. We can never forget.
We have known many were left behind in Nam since Operation Homecoming. We can thank Kissinger for that debacle. Kerry & McCain wrote them off during the senate hearings. It is also known some were sent to other countries. Not only from Nam- but WWII and Korea as well. A few S Koreans have excaped the North after all these decades. Those that get back to South Korea are safe, those that find themselves in China are sent back to captivity in the North. They have survived this long, some US prisnors may have also.
Jim,
I was in Nam in 1969. I do not think of those time much any more.
Frank -
Remembering is good. But insisting that we do not repeat the same mistakes (e.g. supporting corrupt regimes) is better.
John -
I find it hard to quantify the truly left behind. It is the ones that are here at home and yet still left behind that trouble me.
Richard -
I don't think about Vietnam much either -- primarily at Veterans and Memorial Days.
But yesterday my wife convinced me to go with her to Applebee's for lunch - where they were giving a free lunch to veterans. I didn't want to go - don't need a free lunch. But she twisted my arm.
There I stood in line near a couple of Vietnam era vets...obviously deeply phycologically harmed by ther experiences.
That triggered my, mostly latent, feelings about Vietnam.
Jim, I grew up watching the war on TV, praying it would be over before my older brother or I would have to fight. It was. My generation missed it, I'm grateful no doubt. Thank you for going and doing what was asked of you at the time. I have nearly grown kids now who have friends and cousins joining up, and I cringe, but I pray. What else can I do?
Dan -
We need to all help us all get off our dependence/addiction to foreign oil -- from countries whose people do not like us much.
Meeting you and knowing your story of Vietnam is something that should be shared. You may not be ready, but I can tell you that you have a story to share there my friend and it is a special one that meant a lot to my wife and I when we heard it as we knew you know what many have discovered through lives hardships that their is someone who cares for us and loves us.
Jim - a different perspective, I was there 71 - 74, why do governments not learn, you don't go in if you don't want to win. So many lives wasted.
Jim your poem gave me shivers and tears. My dad served but really doesn't talk about it. Your words probably speak for MANY who served and don't have the words to express the experience! This was very personal to you, I can tell, so thanks for sharing it.
Speaking of shivering...
I had a good friend while in Vietnam. His MOS was entitled "graves registration". But he didn't work in a cemetery as that might suggest.
He worked in a transit morgue in DaNang - a place that received dead soldiers and marines (from all over one-third of South Vietnam) in big black body bags. They then shipped them back to the states.
His was a cold work space....in more ways than one.
What a job to have!
I visited him there often.