discussion about your war feelings

Personally- i believe the so called war in Afganistan is a winless hopeless situation- just like vietnam was- our troops are easy targets and there is no strategy . Nations have tried to conquer Afganastan for thousands of years unsucessfully. I wrote this poem for better of worse . I support the troops but world leaders need to solve this and it's root causes or this will be a 100 year war.

afghani-nam

back to hell we ride
quagmires slippery slide

horizons of pain
mirages to gain

seen it all before
in da vietnam war

56,000 US dead -
2 million viet's bled

politicians swore
there'd be an exit door

git' out while the gittins' good

afghani-nam ain't our neighborhood

Re: discussion about your war feelings

I'm with you on that.

I got out of the Marine Corps in 2007. To summarize one facet that's at many levels, I made up a phrase that spread like wild fire: If it wasn't for miscommunication there'd be no communication at all. It's my belief that the true reason for the war is related to Egypt's history. If there's ever an end, there'll be no end really, because Korea and India will be next. Despite our alleged tech., it's been six years of blood and flesh? I'm ashamed to be human, to be associated by species with such abominations.


S:D

Re: discussion about your war feelings

Stardrit, thanks for the post - having the first post come from a vet - make the discussion special.
My cousin a Vietnam Vet handed me a book titled Dispatches by Michael Herr - is sad it's the best book that describes what war is really like and he was in many firefights.

I sounds like you saw your sahre of horror too.

Your words are profound and haunting .

This is an open discussion about " war feelings " both sides

All posts are welcome.

Re: discussion about your war feelings

I think this war/these wars are a complete crock of sh*t...My ex served in Vietnam, and like he told me one time, "What were those people going to do to us? What danger did they pose?" None at all...once again, the US has stuck its nose where it shouldn't have...the US needs to focus its attention/energies/and money on its own citizens HERE, the ones who go hungry every day and the ones who are homeless or on the brink of it...Granted, I DO believe that justice needed to be rendered for 9/11, but then again, there's so much talk of conspiracy that many people don't actually know WHAT to believe. I will echo the opinions of others when I say this, but do know that I wholeheartedly agree, regarding these tensions in the middle east..."I think we should just blow the bastards right off the map." How hard is that to do? Because no matter what, and no matter WHO, whether it be women or children (why are we supposed to feel any kind of sympathy for those select two groups, when we all know that they already hate the US and/or will be taught to hate the US?) unless we get rid of the problem as a whole, we will always face this particular problem--a senseless war that has no good outcome and apparently doesn't have an end in sight. And while some may view this as just my opinion, I feel compelled to say it anyway--anyone who signs up for the military at this point in time is a complete idiot, because the first thing they're going to do is ship your ass overseas to fight in this senseless war...I would be willing to say at this point, you don't owe this country ANYTHING...rather, this country owes its citizens a hell of a lot!!!

Re: discussion about your war feelings

What I know about the Vietnam War, from what my ex told me, was not pretty. He told me stories that literally gave me chills and made me sick to my stomach. And, being the writer that I am, I had no problem visualizing what he told me. Soldiers strung up in trees and eviscerated...wild hogs that came along and began eating the soldiers' intestines while the soldiers were still alive..."Zippo parties", as he called them, where entire troops would invade a village and burn every grass hut to the ground, mindless and/or careless of the occupants..."Ratters"...soldiers who were sent into tunnels first to check for people who were hiding...the tale he told me about eating a can of C-rations and then suffering from an acid trip for the next several hours, because the government had drugged the food...being forced to fight and also fight for his life during this acid trip...hearing and feeling the bullets flying right above his head...seeing children in the fields coming up to offer them food and then finding out the child was strapped with explosives, using the food as a lure to kill soldiers...killing the starving Vietnamese because there was nothing else they (or he) could do for them...laying in a rice paddy for several days, drinking his own urine and breathing through a straw to survive...and last but not least, this has to be the most chilling...when he told me that he and his brigade (or troop), went into a village, and some members of his troop raped a woman and her 9 month old baby, and then killed them both...So yes, I have a "thing" against war...any war, and every war. Objections, anyone???

discussion about your war feelings

I just finished a story about returning to Vietnam with my cousin who was there in 1968.
We were there two years ago
The people were so friendly - the overiding feeling was they did not understand why we were there ......

Today war zone is tomorrow vacation land ....

There is a root cause to all of this ..I'm not equipped with all the facts to say exactly what it is- but i have some fairly sound theroies.. but like vietnam bombing and killin aint the solution--that i'll but money on -- and i lost a brother on 9-11 --so if anyone should be out for blood it would be me ..but i say --- get the big brains in the world in a tent - and dont let them go home till they solve the problem-- we can drive a car on mars but we cant figure this out ---

give me a break !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

stop the war stop the killing start the talking ....

for 30 years we live with the mantra no more vietnams -- LIE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

come clean USA- we are not children .............

if you want to end the war start the draft HA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

discussion about your war feelings

the input we are getting on this topic is in line with the general population
...........dont want to be bothered ----------

i think its time to wrap it up ---

back to lost love and hot nights

Re: discussion about your war feelings

Dear Poet,

Obviously we have not learned anything from history. The only difference iin this war and that is the terrain.

The general population is more concerned these days with their own stuff. We occupy ourselves with lost love and hot nights so we do not have to face the future.

Faith

discussion about your war feelings

We you know maybe I join in on the love and the hot nights because all my
ranting and raving is getting me knowhere ...
Thanks..

I got a comeent from a Marine recently returned - we was disgusted - he had come to the realization that his time was spent for naught because even if these wars ended - another would crop up and then another and another - he say this endless cycle of useless warfare and waste - and we was angry - i respect him greatly - and I also happen to agree with him-
i sense the beginning of some kind of movemnet but is spoken in whispers and small groups -hence the governments of the world can cowboy around with no resistence from thier people -
be happy don't worry little kids -mommy and daddy will take care of you now don't worry your little heads of BANG BAMB BOOB CRASH -

ok lets talk love and hot nights !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! POW

Re: discussion about your war feelings

I did try to enlist in the Military back in 1983, for the Air National Guard, but I was deemed to be mentally unfit. I met Harry Shapiro when I lived at the YMCA in Hoboken, NJ back in 2000. Harry was a Vietnam vet who taught me the difference between a real vet and a full-of shit wannabe. I only knew Harry for about a week, because he was found dead in room 309, during the Memorial Day Weekend, of an apparent overdose. I wrote this following piece in Harry's memory, and also for all those disenfranchised, between life and death-dying a little piece at a time.
**************************************************************************
In Memoriam
(A Trilogy and Epilogue for Harry Shapiro and the YMCA)

I.

Harry, I really didn't know, nobody ever told me
as I stare Sodom in the eye;
boy we're close-we're so fucking close that
we can tickle King Kong's balls, Harry;
Damn, that revolving fan in the ceiling
whirling clockwise but never faster
than the vapor that is us, Harry, you and I -
counter, clocked and unwise in our home;
Yes, we are home, Harry-in our cheesy little pocket
of well stitched yuppiedom
but you are released my friend
as they carry away poorly stitched patches
of what you were and
where you've been.

II.

I did not know, I did not know-
that fucking ceiling fan aggressively
attacks the smoke, but
where the fuck did the years go?
You take my greasy kid stuff and
defiantly comb it through your
reluctantly grey wannabe pompadour-
Harry, you handsome sonofabitch, you!
Fuck, where did the time go, dying-
while puffing the coffin nails and sending
our epitaph into carcinogenic space;
Shit, no stray dogs in Yuppiedom, Harry
just us, as clandestine fumes cha cha
seductively between the twin whorehouses.

III.

It sucks, Harry; weren't you a cook in Viet Nam?
- you can smell the wannabes and neverweres
(so full of shit) from across the river since they
always brag about how may gooks they've wasted;
but if you'd really been there,
I mean REALLY BEEN THERE
you wouldn't talk about that shit as
the phony vet blows nicotine trumpets with
blazing tatoos that hurt my eyes;
But you can tell that he pulls his prick
and you're not here to tell him 'cause
you've been released to those choppers
that bring holy hash and sacred shit-on-a-shingle;
they treated those cans like gold, like fucking gold,
I won't pull your prick anymore, Harry...

Epilogue

They don't announce this kind of shit;
whenever they find you dead in your room you're
only a footnote and/or soup kitchen gossip but
I didn't know since they don't announce that shit;
May God grant us grace to be real, Harry
You've been released, Rest In Peace, my friend...

************************************************************************ God bless all of you vets. We owe you a debt that can never be repaid.

Last edited by studly111 09-05-2009 at 10:15:42 AM

discussion about your war feelings

Thanks for the post - and poem- and memorial you your friend.

There is a Book Titled : Dispatches

When The recruiters talk about the benifits of military service , and there are many ---

This is a book they would never let a canditate read or near.

I support the troops but I just can not accept the horror of warfare.

It's the result of failed policy - and from what I can see just makes matters worse and breed more wars.

Yet I must learn to accept it as the Marine wrote from Iraq telling me that he had lost hope because he realized that even if we suceed in Iraq and Afgahn-inam there will be another and anoter and the next - and his generation will be replaced by another and another and the next- so we discuss it and argue it and speak if its devastation but the Marine knows there will never be an end to it all - are we wasting our breath - should we just enjoy the day ??????? I have no answers - and I'm so tired of it all -

Re: discussion about your war feelings

Here is a poem about how it was for American troops in arab territory in 1955. How different is it now?

Ben Guirer AFB 1955


They called us Gazelles,
That Ben Guirer summer,
Because of the way we got out of the plane,
All knock-knees and elbows, five “second john” brothers
Sprinting leaps cross a tarmac that never felt rain.
Wearing starched Air Force tans
With short trousers and sleeves
Navigator greenhorns dumped into the sand

Our eyes sought some essence of grass, trees or green leaves.
Finding none, only one lonely speck inched around
Large boulders strewn moonlike across the great plain,
Seen for thirty-eight miles cross Saharan terrain,
To the dark Atlas Mountains through nary a town,
Just dry desert dirt painted tan shades and brown.

In one or two days
Through the heat’s undulation
The speck morphed into an Arabian man
Whose camel preceded his slow ambulation
Along seldom used trails in the dry desert sand.
With little to do we watched, while he wended his way.
We made book on how far he would travel each day,
Then repaired to the bar for couple of rounds
The man who guessed best was Gazelle-of-the-Day
The first round on Friday was free on the house.

Said the Arab, “Not one single sound,
‘Til those idiot Yanks aren’t around,
Then we’ll take back from the French
Our ancestral ground.”

We knew nothing about this intrigue.
We sure didn’t suffer from battle fatigue
We were mostly bored out of our gourds
By ethanol soaked overlords
Whose cognitive gifts rendered any of this
Several light-years outside of their league.

By example, let’s take Colonel Lack,
Named by Freudian slip, but most notably apt
Who spent most of his time in the bar,
When he wasn’t asleep in the sack.
Failed piloting check-rides both future and past
A “man-to-man fight out beyond the tarmac”
He challenged enraged at the snickers and cracks
That we whispered behind his most corpulent back.

My apology’s due Colonel Lack,
For morale remained high in the reign of this hack.
Having one foe in common kept the squadron intact.

After Lack lost his luster
A replacement arrived like a modern day Custer
All joint work got lost when the old Lack-luster boss
Packed up his all his gear and abruptly took off.
Restored was the chain of command.
With autocracy back, our real leaders fell flat
And self discipline faltered
On the new colonel’s back.

The moral to take from poor Custer and Lack is:
“The best leaders lead
From the back
Of the pack.”



Copyright 06/09/09
1 Crazy Grampa