A Letter To The Wall
by Doug Rawlings, Veteran
7/15th Artillery, LZ Uplift and Firebase Two Bits. July 2, 1969 — August 9, 1970
Dear comrades: Unbeknownst to you, I suspect, your names have been placed on this Vietnam Veterans Memorial situated in our nation’s capital in the shadows of the Lincoln and Washington Memorials. Since The Wall’s construction, thousands have come to look at your names, to touch them, and to weep at the great loss of your lives . . . .
There are almost 10,000 of you here with whom I could have shared your fates — you were wasted while I was in country from July of 1969 to August of 1970. So it goes. I’m not wallowing in total despair; I’m not pitying you either; and I’m not trying to turn you into a political football. Really. I’m not. However, I have to tell you that your deaths and the destruction we all brought down on the Vietnamese people have politicized — even radicalized — some of us beyond our wildest dreams. Still, we treat your resting place here as sacred ground . . . .
I suppose some of us fantasize that you still dream, that you’re in some kind of version of sleep, connecting with us through this black granite wall. Why else would I be talking to you today? Why else do I feel your presence, especially in the darkest hours of night? You are reaching out to us, but why? And how?
I can’t answer those questions, but allow me to walk you through my journey with you. I’ll do this through three poems — the first I wrote out of anger before I visited you. I was convinced that a nation that literally worships war could do no better than construct a monument that would glorify war.
The second I wrote after visiting you for the first time and finding out that a memorial could be built that does not trivialize your deaths. Thanks to Maya Lin, a person whom I wish you could meet, we have before us a solemn testament to the true costs of war.
The third was written somewhat out of anger and also remorse. It was written after visiting you on Veterans Day a few years ago. I was appalled at how some visitors to you were caught up in their own fantasies, wrapped in red, white, and blue, thinking that your sacrifice somehow made their lives safer, better. I don’t share that fantasy.
In any event, please accept these poems as gifts to you. You are never far from my thoughts and sometimes dreams and sometimes nightmares.
If it’s possible, please rest in peace. And know that some of us use your lives and deaths as reminders that we should never stop working for a world free of war. We owe you that. Take good care, my friends. Doug
ON WAR MEMORIALS (ca 1984)
Corporate America, be forewarned: We are your karma
We are your Orion rising in the night sky.
We are the scorpion in your jackboot
Corporate America, be forewarned:
We will not buy your bloody parades anymore
We refuse your worthless praise
We spit on your war memorials
Corporate America, be forewarned:
We will not feed you our bodies,
our minds, our children, anymore
Corporate America, be forewarned:
If we have our way (and we will)
the real war memorials
will rise from your ashes
————————
THE WALL (ca 1986)
Descending into this declivity
dug into our nation’s capital
by the cloven hoof
of yet another one of our country’s
tropical wars
Slipping past the names of those
whose wounds
refuse to heal
Slipping past the panel where
my name would have been
could have been
perhaps should have been
Down to The Wall’s greatest depth
where the beginning meets the end
I kneel
Staring through my own reflection
beyond the names of those
who died so young
Knowing now that The Wall
has finally found me –-
58,000
thousand-yard stares
have fixed on me
as if I were their Pole Star
as if I could guide their mute testimony
back into the world
as if I could connect all those dots
in the nighttime sky—
As if I could tell them
the reason why
———
WALKING THE WALL (ca 2015) for Don Evon
Note: My time in Vietnam started in early July, 1969 — Wall panel number W21– and ended in early August, 1970 — panel W7, line 29– a walk of about 25 paces past the names of around 9800 dead. I call this “walking The Wall.”
Got to tell you that you’re making me nervous
Every time you thank me for my service
I know you’re trying to be nice and kind
But you are really, truly fucking with my mind
Trust me, it’s not that I really care what you think
You who have had too much of their kool aid to drink
Trust me, you don’t know shit about what service really means
You just need to know that nothing really is as it seems
So take a walk with me down the Wall some late evening
Where we can all listen to the ghostly young soldiers keening
But don’t waste your time thanking them for their service
They just might tell you the truth — all your wars are worthless
Remember Them
by Tarak Kauff, Veteran
Memorial Day
A time to remember those who died
as a result of wars of aggression and empire
For us in the US to start from the beginning
Remember each slowly.
Do not hasten in remembrance
56,000,000 Indigenous North American Indians
30-60,000,000 slaves (That was a war, too)
200,000 Filipinos
2,000,000 Koreans
3-4,000,000 Vietnamese
750,000 Cambodians
70,000 Laotians
111,000 Afghanis
500,000 Iraqis
1,500,000 US Americans in all wars
If we include WW 1 & 2
37,000,000 in WW 1
85,000,000 in WW 2
The numbers are staggering
They were all once living, breathing people
with hopes, loves and lives to live
Like us
Many were just children
Whose lives were stolen by war
All the wars, so much destroyed
Why? And by who?
Always the wealthy, the powerful
Grasping to keep, or more often to greedily expand their wealth
The lives extinguished meaning little
Money, gold and power always more important
Who fights and dies in the wars?
Ordinary, everyday people
But mostly non-combatants
Let us remember all of them but especially the children
Innocent they were
The orphans, the homeless
Those disfigured for life
And remember the precious animals
also innocent, more so than humans
And think of the living earth . . . and grieve.
Tarak Kauff is a former US Army paratrooper who served from 1959-1962, a member of Veterans For Peace, Editor-in-Chief Peace & Planet News, VFP’s quarterly newspaper and a former member of the VFP National Board of Directors.
