INBOUND

© Dan Sutherland

Deep within the blips of thought
are trail filled battlefields
Troubled times and tragedies
Nightmares that just won't yield

Now hear me while I ramble
See the picture I must paint
The road I travels lonely
Recovery seems so faint

It was the collection of our casualties
confusion...how they bled
Yeah I think about them often
How two armies fought and fled

We'd go inbound during battle
Braving danger in the strife
If you can grasp the situation...
and senseless waste of human life

Pilot's pulled the noses up
Chopper's hovered into land
The skid set down in waist high grass
amid debris and swirling sand

Grunts rushed along the craters
....No they didn't flee
They dragged and carried buddies
in that place across the sea

First we took the wounded out
Refueled, then hurried back
There were sights you can't imagine
no sanity left intact

Just let me have your mind awhile
Let me talk of a yardbirds blade
I won't lose you in the tragedy
I just need to make a trade

Soldier's with I.V. bags...
Mortars splashing all around
Casualties lying everywhere
all oblivious to the sound

Sometimes my mind it spirals
Marred by history, plagued by hell
Wracked by truth and ugly torment
by things I cannot tell

There's no moment I don't suffer
that I don't feel a need to weep
A minute never goes by
when I'm not still knee deep

Yes I still struggle with the conflict
From the gnawing deep within
From the anguish of lost brothers
and being mirrored with the twin

The pilot's radio'd inbound
Green smoke upon the land
Beneath us lay the drab green bags
empty stares and blood soaked hands

Stretched before me was an aftermath
A scene of death you can't explain
a staggering horrible feeling
a world that went insane

Choppers greatly overloaded-
refuel, then head on in...
A staggering horrible feeling
a visible human sin

The sight I saw was wrenching
Bodies tagged and lain in a row
Some were stacked like cordwood
....no words could make you know

I saw this on a highway
after an army turned and fled
I was assigned the collection of the casualties
where thousands died and bled....

CAN'T YOU HEAR THE WHISPERS

© Dan Sutherland

There was no celebration
No hero's welcome home
Just returning men who gave their all
...in wars arena far from home

Marked the strong who stumbled
by a war we didn't win
Engulfed in shrouded failure
and a haunting deep within

Could it have been from guilt you felt?
for the flag we didn't raise
Please tell us what's the reason
that you wouldn't give us praise

As we came home from fields of fire
"thanks" was spitten from a crowd
and after all that we'd endured
how it hurt when you weren't proud

Our hills we took when ordered
gave our lives to end the war
And we never heard the pleading
in the hatred which you bore

We fought your war so valiant,
...when the enemy we would meet
And over there we never knew
the meaning of defeat

Can't you hear the whispers
How they cried with their last breath
"I love our God and country"
...and went unknowingly to their death

Vets hang their heads in sorrow felt
carrying memories by the tons
For over there on foreign fields,
we fought beside your sons...

[Photo credit: Silver Spurs '71 Yearbook - provided by Alan Ervin]

STONES OF BLACK

© Dan Sutherland

Amalgams of somber faces
fill the mornings chilly air
Reflected scenes of quiet search
hushed whispers everywhere

Collections of aged photographs-
fingers trace the stone
This magnitude of tragedy
conveyed in mumbled tone

Along this curtain of collected chiseled names
there lies a nations pain
Amassed in sobbing sympathy
tears fall in useless vain

Aged vets among the people
the pain no one can see
The killing fields are silent now
...still they search behind each tree

Hey we were tutored in the ways of freedom
A reality combined with fate
Gradual soon became duty...
peace with honor came to late

It was a careless acceptance of power
Screams the stones in a Washington knoll
When tradition and myth overstepped their bounds
and arrogance ignored the toll

Casualties are the cost of war
but this...can't be atoned
Fifty-eight thousand names now etched...
on a wall made of long black stone.

SOUTH ASIAN CLAY

© Dan Sutherland

Could I tell you of a nightmare
of a nighttime or a day
Of a landscape strewn with casualties
on charred South Asian clay

Aww its just those endless daydream -
to the history most are blind
A long past visual record
echoes in my mind

I recall a lust for winning
we could blame more than a few
Deceit was hid by honor
and this nation never knew

It was the children who were submitted
to the brutal heart of war
Placed in paddy's and the jungles
on a far South Asian shore

Taught to dig in deeply
they patrolled through jungles heat
With squints and smiles and boyish grins
sun peeled arms...and blistered feet

With our sons how we were generous
told aggression we could halt
More troops deployed immediately
ignore all truth or fault

Amongst the whine and hum of insects
under canopy's lush and green
These boys who did the fighting...
twas home of which they dreamed

Wood crating stripped for bunkers-
filled bags...built walls of sand
Beneath sagging poncho-liner roofs...
was home on foreign land

They whispered conversations
secured their ground at twilights gleam
The hiss and squawk of a PRC 25 -
ate their meals from cans of green

Through thick bamboo and booby traps
"Grunts" searched in quiet hush
It was there they paid a heavy price...
ambush mid tangled brush

Silhouettes in black pajamas spring
the tripwires deathly twine
blurred thought in blended colors...
fields of wheat and hills of pine

They moved quickly with their casualties
searching trails with desperate eyes
Gunships racing overhead...
Slicks landing from the sky

Sometimes outnumbered and surrounded
in all places where they fought
I know the truth of hero's courage
in the battles soldiers bought

In the outposts and the basecamps,
kids had turned to men...
Then they brought them home in the darkness
from the hell in which they'd been

Yeah I can tell you of a history...
of a nighttime and a day -
of "L Zs" strewn with casualties
on charred South Asian clay.

THE ECHOES OF WAR

If only I could dump on you
let you listen, let you see
If you could help me find a sunrise
Ease the burden; set me free
Could I share with you the reasons
how "in the Nam" a guilt was born
I won't try to speak for other vets...
Only -how my life's- been torn
You see the war inside me rages.
Unconditionally as an ugly past.
The dreadful that's most frequented...
where the hauntings last and last
I live with degrees of flasbacks.
Spectors from war in a young man's time
Appalling dislike for a no-name place...
A sudden appearance in my mind
"Surround and search the village..."
peasants huddled in trembling groups.
Scared soldiers armed and camaflouged,
young grunts we called "Sky-Troops."
"Affirmative enemy bunkers!"
"Yeah there's tunnels beneath the ground."
elucid caches of weapons;
cleverly hidden, quickly found.
Nefarious grew the nature.
Suspected VC were quickly bound...
Justification soothed the conscience-
"Burn this village to the ground."
Skeleton's in black pajamas.
Pulled by legs from spider holes.
Authorized threats of executions...
arms bent back and tied to poles.
As if mirrored in reflection.
I see the luminous tracers soar.
A muzzles flash; a running boy...
Its a burden born in war.
A quick reduction of human life.
For the mind was primed to kill.
To the victors goes the body counts.
Take by "attrition" what you will.
How atrocious was the rifle
that would recoil in your hand
"Search and strip the bodies"
"...check those papers in the sand."
An unimaginable operation of horrible.
The reasoning I can't share.
There is nothing I can boast of...
ecxept for the fact I was there.

Reminiscence comes in nightmares now.
Aroused ghost's from deep within-
Like a never ending cinema,
complete with sounds and mangled limb.
In the aftermath in the silence.
No commands; just staring eyes.
Weary men look amid the dead for friends,
and see the destruction swarming with flies.
You walk away affected.
No its not some silly game.
You soon realize who's the civilized...
who's the weak and who's insane.
I think, "If only I had turned to flee"
"not pulled the trigger on that gun.
If only I could change the past...
undo the wrong so flagrant done."
Yes nefarious grew the nature,
when it was weapons that we found.
I recall the order given,
"Burn this village to the ground."
Movies don't reveal what the soldier has seen.
They don't come close to the smells and conditions.
War is painful, intense, and highly complete-
then later sends its apparitions.
Go seek and kill the enemy.
Wage brutality upon his land.
Then come tell me about the weapon,
...as it recoiled in your hand.

Anonymous Silver Spur

TO THE SILVER SPURS

Charlie Black

Ride with a Scout if you dare to see the fangs of war draw near,
Take it down to the nippa palm, search a hedgerow, hunt for fear
lurking in some dark grove or neath the Lee of a hill,
Fly into the fangs and find them, nobody else will.

Be a Scout for Silver Spur, if you've the guts for a special game.
Stand back and marvel if you can't, but drink to their special fame,
Luck and skill and a sneer for death, the Scouts who find the prey,
Down low and slow and taunting fire, hunting the very hardest way,
Close enough there to stroke the beast's grisly fur,
The Scouts...and Silver Spur

***

Ride on the back of a wild horse, trigger the Guns if you're able,
Roll in hard, you've got to hit, shoot straight, set war's table
with the bloody meat the rockets and guns provide,
Take your look at the fangs, roll in, shoot, rip the beast's hide!

Be a Gun for Silver Spur, if you've got the genius to fly and shoot,
Stand back and marvel if you can't, but fill a Cavalry boot,
Drink to the Guns that snarl and crack,
An angel's song at the devil on your back,
The guns that still the beast's deadly stir,
The Guns...and Silver Spur

***

Ride in a Slick with other men's lives on your soul when the LZ's hot,
Take another look at the devil's grin as he stirs up another pot,
Forget the yammer of the firefight's course, settle your ship into the din,
Twist your guts into a special shape and take that slick on in!

Be a Slick for Silver Spur if you can stand man's sternest test,
Stand back and marvel if you can't, but fill a glass up with the best,
And toast the slicks that take them down,
Who wear out trust as their special crown,
Whose rotors dare the beast's hungry purr,
The Slicks...and Silver Spur

***

Ride in with the Rifles, armored with guts and skin, if you'll bet,
Boots on the ground, you and him, and usually more of him than you to get!
If you're strong and quick and better than most at the deadly sport,
Then land in the open and smash on in to the gauntlet at the beast's own fort.

Be a Rifle for Silver Spur, if you know you're the best man in a fight,
Stand back and marvel if you can't, but hold a full round up to the light,
The tough ones who test the beast's last stand,
The mean ones who walk into the den of the cur,
The Rifles...and Silver Spur

***

"A newspaperman who writes poetry stands convicted by all higher courts, but you guys need some kind of special regards from me, and that doggerel above expresses it"

....Charlie Black - 2 Sept '68

"A Question"

© Larry "Tank" Carson
Spur Armorer

When we were young men, we first heard the call
From Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Presidents all
It began as a whisper and rose to a roar
The VietNam War was taking our young men,
And they wanted more

We came from the lower 48 states, Alaska Hawaii and Puerto too
Our draft boards kept repeating
Uncle Sam Wants you

From all across America, the middle and lower classes came
Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force, wearing different uniforms
Yet all the same
We raised our hands and to God and Country our allegiance
Was sworn
While D.I.'s promised to make us regret the day we were born

Uncle Sam trained and armed us for bear
And tried to convince us of the need over there
It made no difference that some did not understand why
We were told, "For Christ's sake, suck up and just be a man
or you'll die"

In Basic they talked about Jodi and all the guys in the band
Who, instead of fighting Communists
Stood around smoking dope and enjoying free love
With their heads in the sand

Basic was over and we were off to be trained for war
We learned the skill of causing death and destruction
Who possibly could ask for more

Then away we went, thousands of miles from home
To fight for the land of the free and the home of the brave
Where the buffalo roam

The dark years that followed saw tens of thousands of us die
All across the land we filled up our cemeteries
As our Fathers, Mothers, Brothers, Sisters and Children cried

When it was over and those of us left had come back
We found that for reasons only God could understand
We were still under attack
They turned away, said we had failed and were not wanted
If so many of the American People were right
Why is it us whose dreams remain haunted

From the graves of my brothers, forever resting beneath the ground
And from those of us still walking around
A question unanswered, like a dark cloud overhead,
Still hangs in the air
How can you condemn us the living or the spirits of our dead
If you were not there???

"Tears Don't Change A Thing
When It Comes to VietNam"

© Larry "Tank" Carson
Spur Armorer

A lot of times I cry silently inside
For my friends and their lives that never were
For friends of mine that died

Tears won't bring them home or cause their eyes to see
But each time I cry for a friend
I know he will live on
Inside of me

We didn't need to come marching home with bands
And flags a waving
We surely did not want to be rejected and seen
As drugged out killers with our guns a blazing

For thirty years since I came home
I have heard the crap about the villes we burned
How we killed V.C. and civilians while under attack
Heard Viet Nam mentioned only as a lesson learned
And a National loss we can't take back

I've heard the longest war our Nation suffered through
Discussed in shame
Why is it us the men and women that suffered and died there
Who receive the most blame
Our country would prefer we cover our scars and not share
But hide our pain

None of you can give us back the lives we should have had
Or make up to a wife the loss of her husband
Or to a child the loss of their Dad
You can't erase the years of nightmares
Or retract the painful things you said
You can't chase away the memories of our P.O.W. Brothers
Who our country now have given up for dead

We have a beautiful Memorial in Washington D.C.
It's standing there darkly etched
The names inscribed for all to see
For that with our country we are pleased
It was meant to bring us together with our country
And our pain to ease

But what of us the living
Do you see us as we pass by
Or are we just some of many faces in a crowd
Does our sadness ever catch your eye
Do you want to know and love us
As for our losses
We do cry
And if you should recognize us
Would you stop
Or just walk on by

"19"

walked into an ambush
thinking my sight was very fine
then god threw on the light switch
they say the gunh xa
was laced with opium
noddin to country joe
humpin a 60
sweatin the beer from stand down
one draw among three
to see who sets out the claymores tonight
one draw again
to see who is next to get zapped in the nam
invisible dragons
running through the bush at night
and vietnamese refugees living
to party
across the great pond
home is a word
get stoned or anticipate fear
illumined primitive consciousness
mad rock and roll fallen angels
the art of blood and tormenting sorrows
safe within the eye of gunh xa
the bodhisatva of black virgin mountain
survivors beyond ego illusions
deciples of transformative truths
magi who've sacrificed their past
upon the alter of carnal bliss
the gateway rush
is two words
saddle up

© Darrell Morgan
Spur Rifle Platoon Machine Gunner

BE SOMEONE, BE PROUD

I'D LIKE TO BE A COULD BE
IF I COULD NOT BE AN ARE
FOR A COULD BE IS A MAYBE
WITH A CHANCE OF REACHING PAR
AND I'D RATHER BE A HAS BEEN
THAN A MIGHT OF BEEN BY FAR
FOR A MIGHT OF BEEN HAS NEVER BEEN
WHILE A SPUR WILL ALWAYS BE AN ARE.

© Jerry Samuels
CE Spur ( 6 ) 67-68
1-15-04