Vietnam War Poetry: Five Days Home

Five Days Home by Bill Jones, Jr.

My father and I
Sit in the shade
Of a chinaberry tree
Talk softly of the last good war.
A time of ration cards
And Gold Star Mothers.
"A uniform meant free drinks
And a lot more"
My father says
"But they kept me training pilots
Stateside...
And wouldn't let me go."

In the lower pasture
A phantom chopper whines
Rotors thrash hot wind
As it wobbles upward
With another half-dead cargo.
I blink the image away

"I won't ask if you killed anyone"
My father says
"Because I don't want to know."
Just as well, I think angrily,
My personal count is a little hazy.
Like the pregnant woman at Gio Linh
(She never should have run)
Zapped by a battery of howitzers
Raising puzzling statistical questions.
How do I mark her.
One and a half? Two?
"Drop 100 meters," I whisper.
"Fire for effect."
"Roger that," the RTO replies.

Arm in arm
My father and I
Walk awkwardly toward supper
And the 6 o'clock news.

The chopper drones
Tilts plexiglass nose
To a hospital ship.
The woman at Gio Linh
Seeing her chance
Dashes like a sprinter
Legs pumping furiously
For a stand of scrub oaks
Behind the barn.

"It's a shame," my father says,
Climbing the back steps,
"You didn't get to serve
In a real
War."