A Bird for Nixon and Kissinger

Veteran’s Day — a complicated thing for Bob and I. He was in the Air Force during Viet Nam — two tours. 
These are a few of the poems he wrote after rotating home.
Desertion

They shook us from our roots, gave us new skills:
How to pop salutes, shine our boots,
Then they taught us how to kill.
Congress jumped through Army’s hoop
As Agent Orange dusted our troops.
The press reported all they knew
Of what the White House claimed was true,
And you can’t desert your country
When your country’s deserted you.
We obeyed the orders, moved it along.
Though we sensed that things were going all wrong.
We learned a heinous new song:
Well, if they’re dead, they’re Viet Cong.
Poor folks gone to early graves; we killed the people we would save.
You all sat home, waved some flags while grunts put tags on body bags.
I’ll slay the monsters of my past with feelings felt and questions asked.
I’ll burn the bridges, spike the guns: what’s past is past, what’s done is done.
Time to bend but not to break, time to cancel old mistakes.
Time to give and maybe take, time to risk and not to fake.
No more booze and sleepless nights, time not to be so uptight.
From the shadows to the sun: Past is past and done is done.

-- Probably written in the early ‘70s
Fall River, Massachusetts 

My First Nuke

Did TDY on a tiny atoll which wasn’t very bad duty at all:
Great chow, cheap booze, nice lagoon...and missiles.
One day some APs arrived blowing whistles,
Backed us off the bird, waving M-16s,
Backed up a trailer, looking kind of mean.
Some techs removed the bird’s plastic nose cone
Then replaced it with a metallic cone.
‘What’s that?’ we asked. ‘Real thing,’ one of them said.
We gaped. It slowly sunk into my head. I was ten feet away.
‘That’s a nuclear bomb! They’re serious!
These motherfuckers are delirious!’ I thought and walked away.
After that, it changed. I still liked the booze
and the chow, but I came down with the blues.
My Pacific vacation had a crack. Soon enough my squadron rotated back.
Soon after that I got my 1040.
Couldn’t rotate that warhead from my brain.
To this day I still think it’s all insane.

-- 1968, California

TDY - Temporary Duty Assignment
APs - Air Police
Bird - Medium range ballistic missile
M-16 - .223 caliber automatic rifle
Rotation - Normal crew cycle
1040 - Honorable military discharge document

Welcome Home
Welcome home you Viet Vets
You walking wounded puzzles
We read in Time and Newsweek that
You’re out without your muzzles
Welcome home you scarred up grunts
Two decades down the road
You’re still bruised and we’re confused
By such a heavy load
We’ve welcomed Indo-refugees
Forgiven those Evaders
We put the fun in war again
By shooting up Grenada
So welcome home you psychopaths
You heroes and you junkies
We weep at interviews with you
By anchormen and flunkies
Now what are we supposed to do
To welcome you back home?
We’re all on meatless diets now
So we can’t throw you a bone
Ronzo has our votes, you know
The Pentagon is fat
We’re sending aid to Contras now
We’re very proud of that
A few more years from now we’ll meet
To have parades and fun --
Walking wounded once again:
We’ll welcome home your son.

--early '70s, Fall River
revised 1986, Boston