(Taken from the Book: "Where the Birds Don't Sing")

20

Back Where I Started [Last words-St. Paul, Minnesota]

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When I got off the plane in St. Paul, Minnesota, and crossed the road to get into the cab to take me home, I almost got hit by a car. A driver of another car stopped, saw me in uniform and said [caringly]:

"Be careful soldier, we had a Vietnam Vet cross the street yesterday, and got killed.”

I've always been on one hand careful, on the other carelessly cautious, but normally I've never been sort of—sort of in a daze; but I seemed to be now. Funny how things work out, you go through the training, a war, only to come home and get killed by a driver the day you get back. In any case, I went home, it was as I liked it, expected it to be, I remember the very thoughts that were going through my mind that first day home, when I got out of the cab, just staring about: it was as though dawn had come among the city, ---for the birds were singing---.

I looked in my backyard and within the vicinity, [trying to grab the moment—still in that daze] and yes, there they were, perched on the lilac bushes chirping, tweeting, peeping [interrupting one another], on the telephone wires, on the roof on the garage, the house, it seemed I could spot them all over the place, and they all were singing, singing, singing [as if they had just noticed me]. Funny, I had lived here all my life and never heard them sing like this before.

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It was the second evening at my mother's house; --I sat on the porch thinking, listening to the birds sing, staring out the screened-in-windows. Grandpa was pacing the floor, he had been in WWI, my uncle a POW in WWII, and my Uncle Frank was killed in Italy in WWII. And so the whole family knew I suppose about the birds, that they don't sing in combat zones, they never do, not in any wars. Why should they [?]…there is nothing to sing about. But I was lucky; it wasn't bad for me, not like for many others I knew.

Before I left St. Paul to go to San Francisco, in which I went from there into the Army, the neighborhood was my world. It was all I knew of/or about. Now there was a much bigger world out there. I was becoming calm again, as I smoked my cigarette slowly; grandpa pacing in his living room behind me, like he always did. Like he did before I left him.

I told the birds, I was a good soldier, they seem to listen to me, and I told the birds, I liked their singing; plus, they were the only ones that didn't spit at me.

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Ye Little Birds [Back from War]

Here, then, I came back So they appeared before me; -- But I am no child anymore 'Oh, but I am happy

I see you fly perched On trees so high--, As if you know God, Himself— Thank you for the blessings… Ye Little Birds

Here, then, I came back, [Ye little birds] To watch you in your blues Your skies, your waters, And in trees so high:

I find myself somehow Entwined with thy; -- With sounds of wings,-- Fading sounds of song:

Caw-caw Coo-coo Cluck-cluck

"You are home,” they cry.

Tossed images inside my soul, Floating, floating, no more: Left behind images of war; -- For the birds do not like wars [They have told me so] "Do not depart,” they say-- But yet we go, Time, and time again…

Here, then, I came back to you Who have never left my mind?

Ye little birds—.

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Last Words

Now I must bring you up to date [with Chick Evens], today being May, 2003; and as in everything in life, we must move on. Yes, on, and on we must go, and not think of what might have been, or could have been in Vietnam, if this or if that would ha

ve taken place. Without a shadow of a doubt, it could have been handled better by all involved. With all the probabilities that were looked at in the past, during what is now called the Vietnam Era, simply put, a lot of unknown's were looked at. But you got a picture of how I felt at that time, a time I lived through, and the way others felt that were around me, well, by-and-by, as indicated, a hat full of rain. Having said that let me make peace in the following paragraph:

The war started with John F. Kennedy, yes our hero, he planted the first 16,000 American troops into harms way, and Johnson added 8,000 more, in l965. And from there it escalated to over 500,000. It was what one may have called a little brushfire, turned into a horrific forest-fire [and I doubt Kennedy or Johnson were evil doers, wanting to kill 2,058,000 people, most likely misinformed at best]. Second, let's make peace with Jane Fonda, and all the movie stars that have caused us trouble, in our lives [they, like us soldiers need peace, and surely somewhere in their hearts and minds meant well, or so I'd like to believe; but may the Lord be with them, as well as with us]. And with North Vietnam whom lost 2-million lives compared to our 58,000 American lives. Yes, they paid dearly, and you see, nobody wins. And to Russia and China who had their secret treaties with the North Vietnamese, we surely put them on edge, if not at times in a tight spot, maybe more than a few times. There could have been a WWIII.

Now that I did my apologizing, let's see where we or I am at. Not sure if we have or have not admitted, but if not, it is clear by now, or should be, the war was to produce a "Stalemate [a log jam if you will]” to/or with the enemy, in essence, to contain them, -- and possible push, or dislodge them; or put another way, to kill them faster then they could re-supply new bodies to fight, thus forcing them to a draw, like in North Korea. It is not a way to fight a war though, so we have learned the hard way. But I think we have learned, and that is the good part; or at least it seems so by the empirical data from the crushing blows we gave in the last three wars, that being, in the Persian Gulf I and II wars, and Afghanistan; with the much more clearer objectives. I am not for war, but if were going to fight one, lets do it right.

No we can not guess, and go to war by inches, or with limits, not anymore. It, not only gives the wrong messages to everybody, to include the ones we call the 'good guys' but to the world as a whole; --it defeats the purpose of all the training of the soldier. You have trained him or her with your tax money,--trained professional, licensed killers. That is what you get for your money, like it or not. A soldier is not paid to play chess; he's paid to be a soldier, 24-hours a day. That is right, if he thinks different, he is in the wrong trade [as some have indicated in the last Gulf war, 2003]. Most of the rest of the world knows this, except the west for some odd reason.

And as we all know, the President we dishonor the most, Nixon [or so it has seemed to me in my 55-years on this earth], is the one that got us out of Vietnam, with what little dignity he could. And to him, possible he deserves a Commendation Medal for Meritorious Service. And so, let dead dogs lay, this has been my story.

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