Tarlton Law Library
Jamail Center for Legal Research

Guided Tour

So we'll walk this trail a little
I'll point out the sights,
     these vistas, overlooks and such

Here's where Marty took one in the throat,
     now there's a wound
     fucking blood
     Marty wide-eyed, gasping
     breathing out that fine red mist

And over here a ways
Allen--dumb shit--picked up a wire
     to see what it was
     goddamn booby trap is what it was
     pieces of Allen all over

Right down here,
     near this stream
     but I do go on,
     don't I--

Impedimenta

. . . things bindering progress,
encumbrances; specifically
a) baggage; equipment carried
while traveling; b) the supplies
or baggage carried along with
an army.
                            -- Webster 

That olive drab footlocker
Chipped, scratched, faded and beat
The hasp bent,
The things inside, waiting.

On top, 3 sets of faded jungle fatigues
The pants have a 34 waist
The jackets are tapered.
Once they fit a body lean and hard

Underneath, a cigar box is filled
With decorations, medals
 A bronze star with cluster,
US and Vietnamese jump wings,
Purple heart, air medal, more--

Old photos of tan, young men with old eyes, grinning,
Holding a captured VC flag,
Another of rifles, bayonets
Stuck in the earth, each capped by a beret.
A shoulder patch from the 101st,

Feeling the heft and texture of my field jacket
Trying to recognize a face
No, there is no smell
Once these uniforms smelled of sweat, rain, fear, now nothing

Although I imagine
I can still smell a scent, lingering
Once I swore, when walking into an area, that I could smell VC
Perhaps I could have and perhaps I did.

Here is a packet of letters in flimsy air-mail envelopes
All from my wife
I cannot bring myself to re-read them
Lord, we were all so young

I hunkered there, twenty years later, in the midst of
Cleaning the garage
My wife moves around behind me, puttering, leaving me be
I should throw this stuff out
I have no earthly use for it.

I put the things away that I cannot put away
I'll do this again in a year or so
Remembering
And maybe some day
I will throw away this footlocker.

But more likely
My daughter will sort through it
Looking at these things
Just as I sorted through my brothers' and uncles' old uniforms
And pictures

Then in childish awe of my heroes,
I imagined such glorious deeds
I hope my daughter will not think my thoughts
But will know these things

Are burdened with heartbreak, futility and waste
And think not of what they represent
But of me, just her father.

Dust Off

   A small dot appeared and then the whump, whump, whump reached us. The RTO threw smoke and the chopper banked and dropped in, flaring up before settling so gently, the smoke swirling crazily in the downdraft, the grass and limbs flattening. We watched from the perimeter. Looking into the brush, knowing we wouldn't see anything.
   Four men carried him in the poncho to the chopper, stumbling, their burden dragging on the ground. The door-gunner was shouting. The body was loaded and the chopper lifted free, tilted forward and in that instant of hesitation, before lifting away, the door-gunner took a round in the head, bounced back then fell forward over his M-60. The west side of the perimeter was pumping rounds into the brush, too late.
   I lay in the grass watching the chopper diminish, knowing the co-pilot and other door-gunner would be struggling to pull the door-gunner inside. To lay him alongside the other body and they would be silent and would each keep their hands on him, holding him steady to prevent further harm or indignity.

Dead Weight

Brown took 5 rounds from an AK-47,
     Tore his skinny body to pieces
We wrapped him in a poncho
     Tied him up tight.
But the canopy was 120 feet high--
     No place for a chopper to land,
     Jordan knew him from home
Wouldn't let anyone carry him.
     It was 16 clicks to a clearing
Up the ridge line.
     We carried Jordan's ruck, weapon and gear
He carried Brown
     It took a very long time--
Stopping for Jordan to rest.
     But we made it.
The choppers picked up Brown,
     Jordan sat exhausted,
Looked at me and said,
     "I'm finally done with that
Son of a bitch,
     Don't have to carry him no more."

Silent Interval

     We lay all that night in the water in the rice paddy.
     Ten VC had been seen the night before crossing the dike to our front. So I lay in the lukewarm water wondering, wondering why you can't feel leeches, what it would be like to be clean and dry, or drink a cold beer, or see a girl I'd never seen before get on a downtown bus. I thought of many things that night, mostly good things to keep from being too afraid. But all night, nothing, no sounds, no VC.
     In the early light we got stiffly to our feet, and clambered dripping onto the dike to our front. As we walked single file back to the pick up zone where we would wait for the choppers, Sergeant Allen shot a local's water buffalo. The beast grunted and dropped heavily onto its side. We watched for several minutes while it died, black in the still brown water amide the new green shoots of rice, and then moved on.

Statement

He stood in the clearing, defiant
M-16 in one hand
Pointing it to the sky
The lightning danced off the trees
Stood our hair on end
Crinkled and boomed about us.

He stood there soaked
Ankle deep in mud
"Come on, come on, hit me," he said.
We watched from the tree line, indifferent.

The storm passed on,
The rain eased away.
"I guess I'll live," he said.
He did
     for awhile.

The Distance That Has Never Been Traveled

Falling, to one knee
A hand on the ground for balance,
Beside my boot red spots appear
Turning brown in the dirt.

I must return
Because even from here, I can see:

My father, standing on the tractor
Lurching and moving slowly
Across the wide, flat fields.
Bending again, to steer--
Planting, waiting
For one crop that will never come in;

And mother, sitting
By the window
 Gathering bits of cloth, making rags--
Peering down the road, waiting
Blinded, by the low sun
Catching the drifting dust in its slant;

Butch, lying
On the quilt in his little room
Under the tilt of the roof.
Waiting, watching the wood and paper
Planes sway in the summer heat suspended.
Hearing the tractor, near and far. 

No Slack

Sitting on a sandbag
Drinking a warm beer,
I watched him sitting cross legged.
19 years old, should've been
At a high school game
Hitting on a cheerleader
Grinning and talking
Instead, slowly, methodically
Slipping rounds into a magazine
Placing each filled magazine in its stack,
Four stacks of 5 each
6 grenades all in a row,
6 days rations to be packed.
Rubber tubing tied on each ankle
For tourniquets, just in case.
Four canteens laced with iodine tablets,
A helmet with No Slack carefully penciled across it,
Writing paper and pencil wrapped in plastic.
He looked up and saw me watching--

Airborne, sir
Roger that, I said . . .
Roger, that.

Firefight

He dropped like a stone.
I knew he was dead.

3rd squad worked along the stream,
The M-60 chewed into the brush
a burst of six, a burst of six.
Grenade launcher pock-thumped.
 
Over the ridge a jet shrieked and ripped.
The RTO, hair on end, eyes wild,
screamed into his handset.
The CO's chest heaved and bubbled,
Both medics were dead.

Rounds snapped and crackled,
Smoke eased through.
Changed magazines again--
Someone was crying, curled behind a tree.
The sergeant kicked him loose.

A thud beside me, Harry grunted and sighed,
That final, fucking sigh.
Another magazine--
medic--medic
We crawled forward,
Body by body,
Stone by stone.

Pick Up

   Of all things, I'll never forget the choppers. In the cool dawn we would separate into groups of six, far enough apart to allow a chopper to land at each group.
   We sat quietly, sprawled on our rucks, holding our M-16's listening. Some smoked or tried to finish a letter. Our groups spread along the dirt runway for several hundred meters.
   Then we could hear the faint thumpings of choppers. They first appeared as a low slung series of dots and soon swept over us. The lead chopper dropped heavily by the first group and the remainder settled beside the rest of us.
   We crouched, laden with gear, backs turned, avoiding the dust stirred by the blades, amid the loud noise and swirling debris.
   Then we turned and ran crouched over, under the turning blades, and clambered into the choppers. The pilot and crew watching us silently through their black visors. The door gunners had their M-60's tilted skyward.
   We lifted, tilted downward, and swept gracefully up and away from the camp, over the still, missing jungle.

Burden

Death is the eddy at the edge of the wind
That whispers and curls as we pass.
Bitter breeze that lingers,

Clings to our clothes,
Smells of wet ashes, cordite and rot.
Miasma of despair and
Mantle that cloaks
Worn shoulders with dismal weight,
Peers from dull eyes,
Carried with us every day.

Red brown currency,
Paid on demand.

[486]

Soldiers Die in War

      Die from bullets, shrapnel, booby traps
      Quickly and quietly,
      Loudly in agony,
      Shaking and screaming
          with blood spattered uniforms
          held down by the medic
          crying
      Or silently, at peace, waiting
In the morning
      With dew on green leaves
      That turn in the breeze
      Flowing down the valley
      Dispersing the mist
When the world is waking.
And in the heat blasted afternoon
      Sweat dilutes the blood
      And there's not enough water.
Or anytime, anywhere, anyway--
Disjointed thoughts
      Of pain and home,
      Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers,
      Girlfriends,
      And the medic--
      And how
          unfair it is
          to have all of life
          and no life
          and each and every second is
              slow
                  and
                      clear.

Flight

You must come with me
To see how the green tips
     of the young rice
     inch above the
     brown, still water

Blood soon disappears
Although at first
     it looks like oil
     stirred in chocolate milk.

The flat surface is disturbed
By khaki lumps of bodies
     some face down,
     here an arm lifted, while
A single helmet bobs and rocks,
slowly filling through the
     hole in its side.

In the distance
a crane flies,
     Its wings
     rise and fall.

Our steady footsteps
Make a wake through the paddy,
     In time with the cranes wings.

Career Choice

I wear my fatigue jacket fishing
Everything else--packed away
     Didn't join the VFW, Order of the Purple Heart
     Don't have a funny little hat, bumper sticker

I do have scars, memories
     And fading photographs

Haven't been to the wall
     Don't need to wrap myself in the flag.
     Make a career of being a veteran.

I did it,
It is enough
     that I did it.

Mornings

I sit on my heels
Listening
       to the rain on the tarp,
       the stove hissing--

Waiting for the water to boil,
       the stream dimples from the rain
       and fish rising.

The sun slants through the top
       of the pines up on the cliff.
Here, I am in the cool shadows,
       barely awake, waiting--

Telling myself,
       wait for the coffee,
       eat an orange and granola bar,
       it'll be a long day
       a good day,
       even in the rain--

Glistening on the rocks,
       dripping, alive with light

I shift my weight
Can no longer sit for hours like this.

A cloud covers the sun,
       deep in the shadow
       those days 20 years ago,
       when the water boiled
       in the morning.

Seep into the edges of my memory
       as they always do
       when the--

Mist rose
       we quietly prepared to move out
       eating cold C's and rice,
       fruit cocktails, ham and slimes.

The coffee steam drifts across my face.
       Upstream
             or
                   down,
       I must decide . . .
                         I'll go downstream
 
 

Lunch

"Are you ready for the cart?"
Wheeled to and fro
     stacked with bits of that
     and noodles of this.

Dim Sum
     to be explained and
     eaten later,
Paying by the plate.
 
Hardly reminiscent
of the gurneys--
stained, stainless steel
One body per
Wheeled to and fro,
Examined and discussed.

Followed by the buzzing flies
We looked away--
     one to a bed
     50 to a nurse
Crisp and clean nurses
passing by, nylons snicking
sterile lust--

Orderlies oriental
Pushing carts
Trailing
     tubes and bottles
     dripping, dripping

"I'm not ready
     for the cart."

Jim Nye practices law in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 1991 Nye published his first collection of poetry, After Shock: Poems and Prose from the Vietnam War (Cinco Puntus Press) based on his two tours of duty in Vietnam, the first with the 101st Airborne and the second with the 5th Special Forces Group. Nye has said of his war poems, "Some of these things happened, some did not. But that does not matter, because all are true. This is my attempt to realize and communicate that truth."
The poems published here are drawn from Nye's collection of Vietnam War poetry, After Shock: Poems and Prose from the Vietnam War (Cinco Puntos Press, 1991).