Bao Anh Tu

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everyone humps their own load in ‘Nam
I used to carry M18A1 claymore mines
20 and 30-round clips for M-16 rifles
Mark 2 Anti-Personnel Hand grenades
30 pounds of dehydrated rations in cans
peaches being my favorite
a standard issue M-16 riffle that would jam
if you fired too rapidly
a Boog Powell first baseman baseball card
a letter from Paula with a list of reasons
to why we can’t get married
as many packs of smokes as I could fit
in between my poncho and my clean socks
and my helmet sporting
the Ace of Spades and the signatures
of my platoon buddies
Lee Lemon wrote
“God is my pointman”

everyone humps their own load in ‘Nam
I used to carry weights I never accounted for
the unborn child of the grunt laying next to me
his scream drowning out the world
as his legs lay in pieces a few feet behind us
the fear of running into a bouncing betty
and seeing her smiling face before she takes off ours
the second of caution before I fire three rounds
into a cluttered forest hoping they hit
Charlies instead of friendlies
the pressure of watching little Joe Lambroso
the platoon’s tunnel rat
disappear down a hole and never come out
rumors of the village we’re entering
being a second Mei Lei

And then there’s Bao Anh Tu

and suddenly we’re not the good boys from home anymore
Hank Pilasco’s no longer the small town butcher
who will give you a discount on quality pork loins
Cutter Rennoy isn’t the gas station attendant
who never lets anyone but himself stand in the rain
to fill up your tank
Captain Sam Beauregard isn’t the hero anymore
Because Bao Anh Tu is a VC

and as we cut off his fingers and beg him to tell us
where his buddies are hiding
he screams out in Gookese for his kids and his wife
and his friends and his country
and I wonder again why we’re here
when Paula and her hippy friends protest our actions
when ninety percent of our platoon didn’t have a choice
and ninety percent more won’t make it home
and the ten percent that do
won’t ever forget
the look in Bao Anh Tu’s eyes
as after nine hours of torture he’s still kept his mouth shut
even into death
and in my sleep thirty odd years later he keeps his secrets
we look down at his body
and Rick Romano says his eulogy in one line
“Fuck that Gook”

everyone humps their own load in ‘Nam

I wrote this poem as a sort of tribute to my Dad. I never went to Vietnam, but my Dad fought there and I got him once to tell me about a man he once killed. He said he never knew his name, so I gave him a name in this poem. Most of what is in here is made up, the names, etc, but it's all based on a real event. It's in the style of Tim O'Brien's novel, "The Things We Carried."

This poem also won an award in "Invalid Item"