Vietnam War
Commemorating the anniversary of the capture of Saigon, with excerpts from Jeffrey Minch, Michael Miller, and Gary Lark.
TRANSCRIPT
The Vietnam War was a devastating armed conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against its Southern counterpart and its main ally, the United States. In 1973, with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, Richard Nixon declared the war over and began to bring U.S. troops home. But it wasn’t until April 30, 1975 that the Vietnam War really ended. That’s when North Vietnamese forces captured Saigon, reunifying the country under communist rule. To commemorate the 51st anniversary of that April 30 capture of Saigon, some pieces that explore the profound impact this war had on Americans.
Jeffrey Minch said that for him, soldiering is the family business. He said he wrote this next poem “to dramatize the unrealistic expectations we assume of young officers in times of peace and war. Some of them—the young officers—learn their trade quickly. Some die in the process. Some get your kids killed as they learn.” He said soldiering is a dangerous business and war is an obscenity. Here is an excerpt from Jeffrey’s “The Moment Before the Moment.
Republic of Vietnam, Ashau Valley
101st Airborne Division,
October 1968
There is a moment—just before the world is going to change forever—in which you contemplate everything you know, everything you have planned, everything that can go wrong, and all of your fears. It is the moment before the moment when you take that final step, and nothing—nothing thereafter can be changed. You turn yourself over to your fate, your training, your limited experience, and your luck. And you hope—you pray—you are lucky. The lieutenant briefed the sergeants for what seemed like the 10th time that afternoon. Sitting under the shade of a tent in the still sweltering heat and the sticky humidity made them want to escape the briefings. Trying to stay awake during the briefings was almost as difficult as trying to stay alive would become. But they had to stay alert. The lieutenant required all the sergeants to “brief back” the plan and then the sergeants made the soldiers do the same. They had reconned the location by air. The map was almost worn out by their hot, intent eyes and probing fingers. A sand table—a faithful replica of the site—was at their feet. Nobody was going anywhere until they all got it perfect.
An excerpt from Jeffrey Minch’s piece “The Moment Before the Moment” from Passager’s Winter 2016 issue.
Several Passager authors have written about the actual experience of war. Others have written about the consequences. In his poem “Comrades,” Michael Miller paints a somber image of a veteran’s lonely life after the Vietnam war.
Something inside him winced
At the word Vietnam
Where he kissed a bar girl
For luck before every patrol:
Ambushes, fire-fights,
The bodies of comrades
In bloody pieces.
On his forearm the tattoo:
DEATH BEFORE DISHONOR.
Fishing and hunting
In the Blue Ridge Mountains
Were his medication,
Whiskey on the porch
With Johnny Cash
Singing as he dozed.
Two marriages failed
Before solitude became
His trusted comrade.
Michael Miller’s poem “Comrades” from his book The Solitude of Memory.
Gary Lark said that when he was young, he spent many hours listening to stories spun around the woodstove or on the porch. He said, “There’s a depth of experience and wisdom that comes from being used by forces beyond an individual’s control.” In his poem “Yours, Mine and Ours,”
Gary pictures that setting as another generation comes home from the war.
They sit on the porch
talking a language
fit for a hot afternoon.
“You seen Hollister’s boy?”
“Yes I have.”
Grasshoppers dance in the yard.
“That war messed him up good.”
“That it did.”
The smell of pine and sweat lay in the air.
“They say he busted up Shorty’s Tavern last night.”
“I heard.”
One of the Sutter boys rides by on a rusty bike.
“He should do more fishing and less fighting.”
“That’s true. And if he survives another year or two he might.”
A dust devil travels the field across the road.
“Took us a while, with our war.”
“Yes it did.”
Gary Lark’s poem “Yours, Mine and Ours” from Passager’s Winter 2014 issue.
To buy Michael Miller’s book The Solitude of Memory, to subscribe to, donate to, or learn more about Passager and its commitment to older writers, visit passagerbooks.com.
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Special thanks to New York University intern Alberto Rodriguez for researching and writing this episode of Burning Bright.
For Christine, Rosanne, Mary, Asher, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m Jon Shorr.
Due to the limitations of online publishing, poems may not appear in their original formatting.
