“Look at that wall” says one of the kids.

                      “What are all those names about?”

I'm the tour guide. It's my job to

explain those names to these kids.

Who are sooo young. They've never seen

the movie, don't know a thing about Vietnam.

Maybe their parents have watched us charge from a

landing craft to hit the sandy beach, six-shooters

at our sides, surfboards strapped to our backs.

Tunes of the time—Jimi Hendrix, Creedence, and

the Doors—provide a sound track as we hump into

the boonies to notch another victory for Uncle Sam.

But this war has a different script.

The jungle itself becomes an enemy.

B-40s ripen beside the trails, waiting to blossom

in our faces. Below lurk punji sticks fire-hardened

by the heat of some tropical wood that hates us.

The hearts and minds we came to win recoil

when we approach. Little girls scamper along

the roads, naked, shrieking, dripping their skin.

Alien rice paddies rot our feet, the whores

rot our blood, the junk rots our skulls,

and just being here rots our souls.

Even the corpses are booby-trapped.

We must destroy what we want to save,

call napalm down on ourselves to survive.

Every morning we fieldstrip our brains so we can

get through one more of the year of days standing

between us and a plane ticket back to the real world.

Then we clean our 16s like our lives depend on them.

In the final scene we push past a desperate crowd,

clamber to a teeming rooftop, scramble aboard the

last chopper out, and disappear into a sea of scorn.

           At the end of the movie the only credits

                   are all those names on that Wall.

                                              

                                              ~ ~ ~