* * *

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

        “Why does it have all those names on it?”

        I am the tour guide for this group. My job

        is to explain all those names to these kids.

        Who are so young they probably know nothing

        about Vietnam, might never have seen a war movie.

        Perhaps their parents have watched us charge from

        a landing craft to hit the sandy beach, six-shooters

        at our sides and surfboards strapped to our backs.

        Tunes of the time—Jimi Hendrix, the Doors,

        Creedence—provide a sound track as we hump

        the boonies to notch another victory for Uncle Sam.

        But this war movie has a different script.

        The hearts and minds we're supposed to win

        flee from us. Little girls scamper along the dirt

        roads, naked, screaming, dripping their skin.

        The jungle itself becomes an enemy.

        Deadly bouncing betties hide on the trails,

        ready to explode in our faces. Below lurk

        punji sticks fire-hardened by the heat of

        some exotic tropical wood that hates us.

        The rice paddies rot our feet, the whores

        rot our blood, the junk rots our skulls,

        while just being here rots our souls.

        We must destroy what we want to save,

        call napalm down on ourselves to survive,

        and even the corpses are booby-trapped.

        Each morning the first thing we do is field

        strip our minds so we can get through one

        more of the year of days standing between

        us and our flight back home to the real world.

        Then we clean our M-16's like

        our very lives depend on them.

        In the final scene we push past a desperate mob,

        clamber to a crowded rooftop, scramble aboard

        the last bird out, and vanish into a sea of scorn.

                When the movie ends the only credits

                       are all those names on that wall.

                                                 * * *