Portside

Viet Nam is Still With Us

By Buff Whitman-Bradley

‘Nam vet

So emaciated is he,
So doubled over and folded into himself
As he sits in his wheel chair
Holding a bright green
Hand-lettered sign --
‘Nam vet
Anything helps –
That he seems almost
Not to exist,
Which is, apparently,
What his country wishes for him.

I hated that fucking war,
The slaughter of literally millions
By carpet bombing,
Saturation of the countryside
With deadly toxins,
Massacre after massacre after massacre,
Children on fire,
But I do not hate
This old man
Who was once a boy
Perhaps eager, perhaps reluctant
To do what they called his duty,
To serve as they said his country.
And after it was all over,
When Johnny came marching home
With his damaged body,
His mangled soul,
His broken heart,
They crumpled him up and threw him away
Like an old grocery bag
Full of empty cans.
And now, no place to live,
No money for food,
No treatment for his permanent wounds,
Just a dilapidated wheelchair to call home,
Where he sits with his friend the green sign,
Barely hanging on
In America the beautiful.
 

Buff Whitman-Bradley’s poems have been published widely in print and online journals.  His latest book is “Crows with Bad Writing.”  He was a founding member of the Courage to Resist organizing collective, and producer of a podcast featuring interviews with military members who refused to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Those interviews became the book “About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War.”  He lives in northern California with his wife, Cynthia.