VIETNAM

Remember how we used to play army? My Dad helped me make my rifle from a one-by-four with a finish nail trigger and it was real enough for me. No enemy could survive when I got them in my sights, even though I didn’t have sights - it was good enough for me. We would wage campaigns in the vacant lot, the sun hot on my shoulders and the tall grass scratching my bare chest as I waited for the next advance.

Every enemy was a friend,

it was all just pretend.

Dirt clod hand grenades never took a limb

and our bullets never made a mother cry.

On those hot dusty days, ten thousand miles away, I never thought of another boy, not much older than me, with a rifle in his hand and the hot sun on his shoulders, laying in the tall grass waiting for the next advance.

I never thought about him.

Did he think about me?

As the sun went down, Mom would call me inside to watch her make grilled cheese sandwiches and the TV on the counter would feature an announcer and a war I couldn’t understand.  People shouting and men in suits giving speeches I didn’t understand. Later I would lay in bed with my one-by-four rifle on my chest and I could smell the dirt and the sweat from today's battle on my little wooden rifle. A warm, comfortable, contentment would wash me away and I would slip into sleep, utterly and completely safe.

Ten thousand miles away a boy not much older than me lay in a hot bunk with the smell of dirt and sweat and gunpowder hanging in the air. He hadn’t watched the TV news, he hadn’t seen the people shouting or the heard the politicians speeches. He didn’t give a damn.

I never thought about him.

I never thought about his mother and father

who tried and tried to push aside the hole he left behind.

I never thought about his brother who was falling behind the others

or his sister who read his letters every night.

 

I never thought about him and his friends
who had fought and died on long hot summer days
when the bullets were just pretend, and the enemy was your friend

or how he ended up in Vietnam.

I never thought about him back then
I never thought about him one single time

but I bet he thought about me.