[HT: Ace]
WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….
Welcome to the New American Digest: 2003-2020
He thought he kept the universe alone;
For all the voice in answer he could wake
Was but the mocking echo of his own
From some tree-hidden cliff across the lake.
Some morning from the boulder-broken beach
He would cry out on life, that what it wants
Is not its own love back in copy speech,
But counter-love, original response.
And nothing ever came of what he cried
Unless it was the embodiment that crashed
In the cliff’s talus on the other side,
And then in the far distant water splashed,
But after a time allowed for it to swim,
Instead of proving human when it neared
And someone else additional to him,
As a great buck it powerfully appeared,
Pushing the crumpled water up ahead,
And landed pouring like a waterfall,
And stumbled through the rocks with horny tread,
And forced the underbrush–and that was all.
Gerard Van der Leun
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
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Welcome home Colonel.
Son of a BITCH that shit still hurts.
Blessed rest for the formerly lost, and peace to family and friends.
I didn’t go to Vietnam, because I joined in 1975 at the age of 17. My dad was a WWII combat vet.
Vietnam. HFS. Everyone in my infantry unit that was a little older than I was a combat vet from Vietnam, and I remember most all of them. Their stories. Their eyes. One guy chopped off a VC’s head with his entrenching tool because he lost his rifle when he was shot by the guy. Another had nightmares at night after being a point man in a rifle platoon. He taught me so many skills I became a subject matter expert in my weapons system. He knew it all, upside down and backwards. Another couldn’t hold a job after coming home because one supervisor asked the asshole question: if he’d ever killed a kid. Yes, he had. The kid ran headlong into the grill of his 5 ton truck and there was no reaction time. He was spat upon when he entered the airport in SF on his return home.
Heroes. Hard men.
Other wars had tragedy, that’s not an argument. But Vietnam was an epic tragedy at the individual level.
My HS classmate’s brother came home 20 plus years late, in a small box. He wouldn’t stop flying his helicopter into withering fire because he was looking for his downed squadron commander. He was killed in this selfless act – put in for the medal but got the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously.
I never went, but I have my own memories of the era. I didn’t protest; I served. I don’t give a flying fuck for those who protested.
Sorry to say “I” so much. These are my personal observances of the war and the war era. They show how I feel.
If you say you’re against the Vietnam War even once, you have a piece of ice hanging on your heart. You fucking shit.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
We did not forget Colonel Knight. Someone, his family foremost, remembered.
Godspeed Colonel. Welcome home at last.
Rest in Peace
Casey,
I spent a few days in Saigon and the Cu Chi tunnels in 2003. I had read so much about Vietnam and since I was living and working in Asia, I had to go see first hand. I have a favorite picture of myself after the tunnel tour standing in front of a pile of old and benign American military munitions holding a Tiger beer. Even in the shade I was soaked in sweat. I can only image adding a flak vest, steel pot, full ruck and ammo for the pig.
As you are well aware the DSC is just below the MOH. One must just about die to get such awarded.
I have a book covering all the stories of guys in Vietnam winning the MOH. Have Gerard give me your address and I will mail it to you.
What a handsome man Col. Roy Knight is.Beautiful family.
Of course,all pilots are good looking,it’s a basic requirement.
What an honor for his son, Captain of another type of aircraft,to bring his Dad back.
Welcome home,Sir.
Rest in Peace.