A Twelve Year Old's Memories
of
The Vietnam War, with Meatloaf
(and commercial breaks)
.........................................

My Father insisted
at meal-time each day,
that the T.V. be on
to hear what they'd say
on the Huntley/Brinkley news report
of the latest happenings
of the Viet Nam war.

We'd have roast beef, potatoes
and black-eyed peas
and Buddhist Monk protesters
down on their knees.
Burning alive
on the news at five.

To hear more on this story
we'd wait through the break:

"Bayer's the pain reliever we all should take!"

There were terrified refugees
with no place to go,
and while eating my dinner,
I would know
that their poor, frightened children
with no shoes on their feet,
would run through my dreams
when I'd go to sleep.

"Try Sominex instead of counting sheep."

Experts would give their opinions sometimes
on the usefulness of Napalm
and Anti-personnel mines.

I somberly listened as I buttered my bread
to news-cast celebrities counting the dead.

"Can your watch take a licking and still keep on ticking?"

I ate with my eyes closed;
couldn't take any more
of the black and white bloodshed
of the televised war.
In condensed and edited video shorts,
sandwiched between ads,
weather and sports.

I sat in my chair,
swinging my shoes,
digesting meatloaf
and bombings,
on the five o'clock news.

"And nothin' says lovin' like somethin' from the oven"

Sometimes we'd watch
on another T.V. station,
the news of the conflict
that would cripple a nation.
Old Cronkite intoned
in his trust-worthy voice,
"And that's the way it is."

He left us no choice.

"Remington's the shaver for busy men on the run,
and is it really true that blondes have more fun?"

During those early days
I couldn't have known,
there were friends I'd grow up with
who'd never come home.
They'd just be young soldiers
paying thier dues.
More dinner-time statistics
for the five o'clock news.

These were things that I'll never forget;
how I learned about war
from an RCA set,
and those deep, somber voices,
I can still hear them yet,
"Good-night David, Good-night Chet."

by J. C. Carpenter