Christmas Letters to Soldiers during Desert Storm
Two-Part Poem by Barbara Sears from Letters Sent and Received During Vietnam
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MY VIETNAM Thoughts of you come and linger As I picture you in a diseased swamp with a gun in your hands, Dirt and grizzle on your face, a helmet on your head, and death on your mind. I wretch inside when radios blast news of American deaths, And newspaper headlines announce that peace is years away. I turn my thoughts to warm summer evenings, Long walks and trees and beaches and wonderful times. Then I remember how you had yelled that you’d get a few of those bastards before they got you And I wonder if things will ever be the same again.
Barbara Sears Summer 1967 |
DEAR BARBARA ANNE Writing on my helmet, the only surface I have Chiggers embedded ‘round my sock tops and belt itch like hell Wet socks for 3 weeks Feet rot and smell like old cheese At night VC rattles serpentine to scare Marines don’t scare Marines get even Some in my platoon rape women bent over in rice paddies Don’t trust children or women, definitely not men Kool-Aid helps the taste of fetid water Send me some? My helmet clipped by a bullet Jingle bells, Santa smells VC in the grass Take your jolly Christmas tree and shove it up… I finally got one before he got me Thank God for my bayonet Missing you, counting the days When I return to normal life. Love, EJ Barbara Sears - March 12, 2013 |