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Teenage Nazis (poem)

By Dennis Serdel

Roy did not know who his father was,
raised up in Jersey City, New Jersey
He grows tired of living on the dirty part of town,
Joins the Marines at the age of seventeen
they teach him how to kill in many different ways.
Roy loves the power that has been given to him
They then send him to Vietnam
to join the other Nazis.
When he goes to his first village
a mamason runs up to him,
No VC Here No VC Here, she nervously says.
Roy takes his Ka-Bar & stabs her in the gut,
when a little boy sees his grandma go down
he runs to her & says something in Vietnamese,
Roy takes his 45 & shoots the boy in the head.
Another Nazi grabs a papason by the neck,
throws him down the well & takes his silver 38
with pearl handles that his Nazi Dad sent to him,
& unloads it on papason down in the well.
Other kids run to their grandmas & grandpas
as the Marine Nazis kick them with their jack boot
jungle boots & then leave.
In the next close village there are no Vietnamese
in the open anywhere.
They are all hiding in their mound bomb shelter
covered with grass, but the Vietnam Nazis
throw hand grenades into the tunnels inside it,
when they hear the screams they throw
in more & then leave.
They know it will make the VC insane mad in the area
about their mothers, fathers, wives & children.
The American Nazis have become good
at finding booby traps & land mines.
But when 3 of their own hit different ones in one day,
they kill & burn down 6 villages in a row.
When they hear of My Lai, they have to admit that,
the Army Nazis who did this
should all get Silver Stars.
But then in a quiet village they get bored,
so they take a papason & tie him to a tree,
& take turns bayoneting him just for fun,
while in another hut, the American nazis
gang rape a little girl.
When Roy kills his first VC, he cuts the head off,
puts it on a long thick stick.
Later he carries it down Highway 1
to the American Nazi base camp, & digs
a hole & puts the stick head in the ground
with rocks to hold it for all to see.
When Roy flies home after his Tour
of the American Nazi War he has ribbons,
& a Bronze Star & Silver Star, for killing
the most Vietnamese enemies VC NVA or not.
His photo makes the front page of the
Local Newspaper as a hero, killing the
most Vietnamese of his whole Company.
After a couple of days Roy wears his jeans,
an old T-shirt & walks along the boardwalk
on the Jersey shore.
A police man who saw his photo, tips his hat
to Roy when he walks by, then with the lights on
& the ocean breeze, another man recognizes
him too. Shakes Roy's hard hand & asks him
what are you going to do? Roy says probably
work at the docks, the Mob man shakes
his head, says you deserve better than that,
He has a high paying job offer with
little work, the Mob man sets up a 9 o'clock
breakfast for both of them the next day.

—Dennis Serdel
Vietnam 1967-68, Light Infantry, Americal Division, 11th Brigade, Purple Heart