I’ve been watching a lot of Vietnam war movies lately. Our current American culture has reverted to glorifying war and it makes no sense. Iraq was invaded by the USA on a lie. The memory of the USA is short and has forgotten Vietnam, or as the Vietnamese call it, the American war. Americans invaded their country but in America the blame is put on Ho Chi Minh. I was born in 1977 and found my way to Vietnam and lived there for two years. If reincarnation is true then I’m starting to think I may have been a soldier killed in the war. I’m drawn to Vietnam but have no explanation for it. I watch the movies, listen to the music of that era and feel something deep inside me, something that has always been there.
I learned of this quote after watching the movie Hamburger Hill and it hit me hard. Yes, save a place for them as they were innocent young men ripped from their towns, sent to another world and killed. They didn’t deserve that and I have to hold back tears when I think of them.
But also, save a place for the North Vietnamese and Viet Kong. Their country was invaded and they didn’t deserve to die either. Young men, both sides being sent to die by powers who had an ideological disagreement on how the economy should be run. What insanity.
I wanted to keep this poem in this online journal. But my wish is that it would apply to both the North Vietnamese and Americans. I hope one day humanity will quit being so stupid.
If you are able
Major Michael Davis O’Donnell
save a place for them
inside of you…
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go..
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always…
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you
with their dying
and keep it with your own…
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call this war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind…
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978
