The Skyraider
Piercing the skies,
Saigon is beneath my wings,
The war is going, hold onto the
God-given freedom
Pilot Duc, take me in, there the
Viet Cong atrocities
An Loc, Tay Ninh, Trang
Bang, the mother earth is burning.
Hold onto me, go ahead and break
my wings.
June 8, 1972, the lonely An Loc
is under siege,
Trang Bang is under attack, there
come the North Vietnamese
Children, men, and women keep
running
The Communists are so close, Duc,
let me in.
Just you, Duc, and me now,
Stop the enemy from charging
South Vietnamese units,
Get the napalm in, go ahead,
release it from my body
They are firing upon me; oh, I am
hit, not bad.
Back to the airbase, you landed
me on the familiar tarmac,
You folded my wings for a rest
Waiting to be called on the next
sortie
War, who is invading the
Southland with war;
Duc, we will pull through this,
keep your faith in me.
Oh, no, who took the photo of my
fight?
That’s awful, I burned the
little girl, Duc, I did it.
You fought the Viet Cong,
stopping their atrocities
Don’t cry now, Duc, our country
needs you, keep fighting
Another sortie request just came
in, hurry, get on my wing.
Twenty-four years later,
Eleventh of November, 1996, at
the Wall…
The nine-year-old girl in the
photo, now a woman,
Who finally escaped the Viet Cong
for freedom
What did she want? And who put
her there?
Duc, say it, say: "I am that
man."
Linh Duy Vo
(The Boy in the Poem)
My thanks
to former South Vietnam pilot Duc Tu Nguyen (VNAF, Third Division in Bien Hoa,
A-1 Skyraider Squadron 518) for his lovely "thank you" Hallmark card
for my book of poetry Dear Daddy. I thought Duc's personal inscription would
mean much to my papa-san on The Wall. I left it there on the rainy morning,
Veterans Day, 1998.
