Children of the Fall

There is an orphanage in purgatory

Full of the unborn children I never

Had the chance to baptize with my wife.

 

I wear transparent I.D bracelets with

Their potential names next to the Dog Tags

From the boys my platoon lost.

 

We all got shafted by Agent Orange--

At least I got to keep my family jewels,

Even though they discharge empty cartridges.

 

Would my sons have grown into soldiers

And died fighting the poster boys of communism

In someone else’s backyard?

 

Would their service have merited a Purple Heart,

Possibly a Congressional Medal of Honor for acts of valor

No civilian would teach his kids?

 

Are taps, a 21 gun salute,

And a folded American flag

Severance for the generations

We ultimately sacrificed?

 

Johnson and Nixon are unavailable

For comment--Kissinger is out to lunch. 

Author's Note

"But the key to all that we have done is really our own security. At times of crisis—before asking Americans to fight and die to resist aggression in a foreign land—every American President has finally had to answer this question:

Is the aggression a threat—not only to the immediate victim--but to the United States of America and to the peace and security of the entire world of which we in America are a very vital part?

That is the question which Dwight Eisenhower and John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson had to answer in facing the issue in Vietnam." -Lyndon Baines Johnson (Speech on Vietnam: September 29, 1967).

"Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.

And so tonight--to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans--I ask for your support." -Richard Nixon (Address to the nation: November 3, 1969).

Reviews

[dukovan]

I feel you reaching into old frustrations you seem to have commandeered enough to compose into this. Good art showing where your at, and where YOUR America was at, for you, and essentially for me now. Its a silent oppression of the lack of acknowledgement, and such blatant indifference towards the common good, and the passive allowance of a docile and lukewarm society.

I don't want to have to talk to any of the heads.
They realized that they can't read between the lines anymore and simultaneously carry out their duties. And if they can do that, then thats what scares me most.

[misha]

Such a strong piece. Keep it up!

[Rita L. Sev]

These are the injuries of war that the men who orchestrate never speak of. You have given powerful voice to the reality, and written a sub-chapter of history that young soldiers are not taught... I really like this write, Christian.

[bobc]

C...a very sad and tragic era in history encapsulated in a poem about accountability and one unanticipated outcome. The question posed may be unanswerable but it still needs to be asked. Thanx...bobc

[Clockwork]

Thank you Bob, I really appreciate your input on this one. You're right, the question still must be asked.

[bobc]

There's even a word for unanticipated outcomes...blowback. As if any event is an orphan. Thanx again...bobc

[bobc]

Just came across a good example of 'blowback' and remembered your poem about Vietnam and our exchange about it. Does anyone imagine Iranians don't remember this? Though it might be of interest to you if you weren't already aware of it. ...bobc

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/18/cia_admits_it_was_behind_irans_coup

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i love this poem...being from that era...

you have expressed this so well...where is the accountability...???

"where have all the flowers gone? long time passing, gone to graveyards everywhere, when will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?"

and war has such lasting after effects...

[Clockwork]

Thank you very much Jacob, I was really hoping to capture what those things. I was hoping that I could pull it off being from another era.