It Wasn't the Fourth of July - poem

 

Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

It Wasn’t the Fourth of July

 

     That we may wander o’er this bloody field

     To book our dead, and then to bury them

 

-Henry V IV.vii.75-76

 

It wasn’t the fourth of July, but it was about then

Near the Cambodian border, on the Vam Co Tay

Searching for two American airman whose machine had gone down

Down, down into the steaming green Vam Co Tay

 

Bloated and floating, quite still when we saw them

The sloshy prop wash bumped them about a bit

Empty eye sockets, mouths open in silent screams

We poncho-linered their bodies aboard the boat

 

Cigarettes of despair against the stench and rot

This was not what we sang about in school