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Too Close To the Viet Nam Shore (poem)

By Mushroom Montoya

Viet Nam Dead ahead.
Starboard turn, 90 degrees.
We fall in line, taking our place
on the Tonkin Gulf gun line.

Guns blasting from ships ahead.
Gunsmoke fogs the view,
Stretching long my very first hour,
Standing my first battle station watch.

Watching our ship sailing too close
To the Viet Nam shore.
Oh! Look how beautiful it is
Over there.

But Bombs are blasting on the beach.
Three boys running on the sand,
Until our five-inch gun guns them down.
Three boys' bodies splatter across the ground

Bleeding their deaths
Before my eyes,
Sucking out my sanity,
While the Captain's vanity
Soars.
Scoring us a shiny killer's badge.

How can grown men be so blind
That they pay no mind
To the bare-naked fact
That children are dying at their hands?

Why can't they understand
We are really just killing each other;
"Those people" are our sister and brother.
Their parents, our father and mother.

When will we evolve
And learn how to solve
Our complications with discussions
Instead of hurling percussion grenades?

—Mushroom Montoya