I Am A Viet Nam Veteran Too You say that the women Can't know pain of war, I am wounded where you'll never see. I have lost, due to death, Some old close friends from school, One vague cousin and, too, Several men who came back home alive. Into tiger damp jungles, Of bomb whitened heat, They marched off to what they believed, To learn not to trust, Anyone, save themselves, Slowly come to the view, That the women are the enemy. Could it be that you taught them, Only too well, this chore? I have welcomed them back home with tears. Now they come to my bed, Speaking love with thier eyes, Just to stab me to death With the only weapon they have left. Somewhere deep in the tropics, They left parts behind, Still they smell the sweet, raw stench of death. But you taught them to fight, Then they learned to love hate, Perhaps even hate love and To kill back in sheer self-defense. Yet you never showed me How to fight, how to kill, How to strike back to save my own life. So when they returned, Full of lust, primed with death, I knew no self defense And I'm wounded, but you'll never know.

Photo copyright   MJL Poem copyright  AMD