NAVY TYPEWRITER

I used to write letters on the USS Truxtun's typewriter in CIC (Command Information Center)when we were in the Tonkin Gulf. CIC was the ship’s brain. Radiomen, Sonarmen, and others fed information to the officers, who used the information to strategize and make decisions. It was restricted space. I really had no business being in CIC. However, no one ever asked me what I was writing or why I was in there. 

I had typing paper, but no eraser. Ships are in constant motion, rocking and rolling over the swells. Therefore, when I typed, typos were common. When I did a typo on the first letter of a word, I would stop and try to figure out what word I could use that started with that letter. Sometimes my letters went in directions I had not originally intended.

Recurring Happiness

Happiness is temporary

And it can be recurring.

When my fellow shipmates and I

Circumnavigated the globe,

We saw boys and girls,

Barefoot, and boney,

Wearing unwashed,

Threadbare

T-shirts,
And shorts,

In Olongapo,
Karachi,

Mombasa,
And Moputo.

Their faces beamed joy

When we invited them to play

With a Frisbee

Or to toss a ball.

Their condition,
Raggedy as it was,

Didn’t diminish

The glee,

That made them free

Of poverty

For that short time.

Their laughing squeals,

And their radiating faces

Have followed me

All the way to this moment
Bringing me

A recurring happiness.

July 4th Of Every Year

July Fourth

Of Every Year

Brings back Viet Nam,

And the bombs,

And gut wrenching,

Teeth clenching,

Feelings of war,

Of death,

Of the constant vigilance,

And the sorrow.
Yes, the sorrow for all

The dead and the maimed.
The sorrow for all the mothers

And all the fathers

Who buried their children

When they came home

In flag draped coffins

And body bags.

The sorrow that I came home

And they didn’t.

Every Year,

When the sky lights up,

And the booms punch

Hard and deep,

As they wrap their

Boney fingers around my throat,

And squeeze that lump,

Forcing tears
From the beep inside

To leak out
And sting.

Every year,

Every damn year

The booms take me back

To the ship’s alarm,

“General Quarters!

General Quarters!”

The flairs light up the jungle

Men yell and scream

Choppers whop, whop

Over the trees,

Shooting lines

Of glowing bullets

At men and boys below.

Our ship fires

Boom! Boom! Boom!

I pray,

“Please protect our men.

Please protect our ship.

Please let me awaken,

Awaken from this nightmare.”

July Fourth

Blasts me back

To Viet Nam

Every damn year.