"PARTICIPANT South East Asia War Games |
 |
Panel 09E, PFC Doug Knott's home on "The Wall." |
"SECOND PLACE"
I hesitated, then chuckled and reached for my wallet.
Had
to have it.
There
was an outline map of Vietnam in the background.
A
line ran across it,
like
the bar in the middle of a fraction,
cutting
the land in half.
I
wore it around my comrades.
Got
lots of laughs.
But
sometimes I wondered,
My
eyes would focus just below the bar,
a
place we called the DMZ
"That's
where Lieutenant Al Lofton's chopper went down in November of 1968."
No
survivors.
We'd
been fraternity brothers before the war.
I
could imagine a spot,
about
where Da Nang should be.
My
high school friend,
Spec
Five Bob Fox,
spent
long nights there in 1965 in a dingy bunker
listening
and deciphering as Charley talked to his soldiers in the South.
I'd
trace the thin central part of the country with a finger.
picturing
the area where my junior high teammate,
PFC
Doug Knott, six foot six and gawky,
was
killed in 1966.
A
half-inch above the star that marked Saigon,
was
where I spent most of 1969.
I'd
scan the fat bulge at the bottom of the map,
Where
the Mekong River formed the Delta.
That's
where my college room mate
Lieutenant
JG Dennis Michalske,
plied
the waters in a bullet riddled LST,
and
taught English to orphans on his time off.
The
shirt helped me laugh,
Escape
from memories too painful to confront:
Body
bags,
kids
wrapped like mummies in white gauze,
a
legless boot rolling off a stretcher,
a
picture of a set of dual wheels from a five-ton truck,
resting
on their side in the middle of a jungle road,
all
that was left of the ambush reaction team for a highway 13 convoy.
I
could see my own tour lurking in the cotton threads;
10
months of work and boredom punctuated by minutes of body shaking terror.
A
friend, a well-meaning war protestor, wanted the shirt.
She
was amused by the "Second Place,"
Wanted
to share it with others,
Well-meaning
also,
who
didn't understand those of us who had served.
I
wouldn't give her the shirt,
but I couldn't wear it anymore either.
