AFTER FORT BRAGG, 1957 AND VIET NAM, 1965
this one for the Captains
All this was fine, you said,
and would soon be glorious.
The hole in which you slept
was too good for filling-in,
and you left it for another.
We marched away from war-games,
route-step from the booming,
handkerchiefs tied to the belts
on our backs–the only white
in a last, moonless night.
You turned up over and over,
your photograph on page one,
MOTHER’S LAST SON …,
another medal for valor.
One more for your German father!
(How you’d stressed your brother
who had died for the Axis!:
you thought to train me better
by scoffing at my amateur
scouting after justice.
One army served like others,
one cause was just as any.
All the fuss of the papers
was lost on you, was funny-
you were the new hero-Johnny.)
In the original marching song
you would not have come home
like this, in one piece,
a clean hole in your skull,
your honor on your chest.
Captain, I could not follow
you, nor the cloth of you.
Ahead the dark made you room.
And then you were moving away,
vanishing with your white flag.
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