Underground

Vietnam 1966

It was 1965 when three Marines,
Barely out of high school
And dressed in jungle fatigues
Invaded a World War II
Japanese bunker in an ancient, Okinawa cave.

Scorch marks on the rock showed where napalm had once roared.
We examined the spot where
The Japanese soldiers placed their machine gun.
Imaginations traveled back in time
Where killing turned soldiers into hometown heroes.        

At the back of the cave, the tunnel narrowed
From vertical to horizontal.
Like acrobats, we twisted our bodies into worms
Crawling through mud
With solid rock inches above our heads.  

It was tight in that damp, narrow space beneath the earth.
We were cockroaches crawling through a volcanic vice
That could easily close with an earthly shudder.

We knew that Okinawa was home to deadly snakes
Lurking in dark places
When the lights from the military flashlights flickered.
With the light gone, the darkness was total.
There was no dripping water, no echoes
Just silence,
And no way to tell which direction was the way out.

Panic was not an option.

To move, we shoved with our feet
And clawed with our hands.
After an hour, there was not enough room to lift our heads
While plowing through muck
Wondering if it was possible
To make a U-turn and return to that cave
While surrounded by a starless midnight.

When we neared the notch in the side of the gully
Outside Camp Hanson,
That light at the end of our journey appeared,
And we tumbled free and swore never to return
To that natural dungeon.

Most warriors are eighteen
When they go to war.
We set boots in Vietnam a month later.

 

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

Heart wrenching poetry here.