Tet Offensive
So much blood! Horrifying blood!
Bullet soaked, urine stained
bowel smelling blood;
gushing from a scream
¾ an agonizing, horrifying, “I-think-I’m -going to die!” scream.
My buddy delirious
away form his legs,
and an arm.
Sergeant Major
stepped on a mine, and
exploded into pieces ¾ thousands
raining ground meat, and
bones
¾ a mosaic of green leaves sprayed red
fresh jungle kill
stinker than filth.
for my buddy did
lose bowel control
just before he lost consciousness
and ignored the continuous pounding of mortars, rackets and bombs
blowing blood from lives everywhere.
His vomit, the least of my worries, as monsoon rain began
pouring ice water
in between the bullets from a Viet Cong gorilla
aimed at killing my ass.
He smelled my blood
I spilled his
with bullets of adrenaline,
with hate, anger, and fear
¾ blowing his back off.
Surprise! Felt amazement. My God! Wow! What a rush!
It is so easy to kill a man
just aim and squeeze the trigger.
Then the quietness became deafening
the fire fight was over, and
I heard someone shouting commands
I recognized the voice to be mine
to stop
the bleeding
fix the wound
treat for shock
radio MEDEVAC.
It was then that someone said to me,
“First Sergeant, do you know you’re shot? You’re bleeding.”
... and I secretly thought to myself:
“It’s amazing--the stuff we can get use to.”
