I invite you to visit my, “Vietnam Picture tour,” from the lens and poet's pen of a combat infantryman. Take a walk through "the park" with the 1st Air Cavalry on combat patrol. http://PZZZZ.tripod.com/namtour.html

Photo Tour of the people of Vietnam: http://pzzzz.tripod.com/viet.html

I served with B Company 2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry '66 - '67, as a combat infantryman operating out of LZ Betty near Phan thiet in Vietnam's Central Highlands. My goal in writing today is to educate people who have no idea of the realities and atrocities of war...with the desire to promote peace. I wish the horror stories of what happened there to never die. I want them to live on in the telling and retelling...rubbing people's faces in the horror vested on a generation, until they become a firmly established part of our memory...so that we may understand this should never happen again.

I am a Vietnam poet, working in multi- media with the Internet, using colorful backgrounds, and haunting music that many veterans say reveal the anguished smell and textures and feel of war in Vietnam.

I was the sports editor of my college daily newspaper (BYU's Daily Universe) when I was drafted...and like so many others, Nam changed the direction of my life indelibly and forever. Nam imbedded my soul with a new set of senses...forever.

Many veterans have written me saying that for the first time in 33 years they read exactly what they felt, and for the first time they were able to sit down in front of the computer with their families and show them what war was like for them. School teachers have written me saying they think my "tour," should be required viewing for their students.

I wrote this poetry because all the people of the world continually need to understand how important an event war is. War will always be a determining factor of not only who we are, but will determine our very futures, as well as the futures of our wives and children. I sincerely hope we will not doom our children to fight senseless battles as did we, shackling them to similar fates suffered by their fathers in the latest in a series of "war-to-end-all-wars!" If we do not learn the history of war, learning there is no glory in war...only death, destruction of values and misery, then we are doomed to repeat it!

And the next war will inexorably come!

Sometimes war is a necessary evil...sometimes not...sometimes there's Vietnam! My fervent wish is that there be peace evermore, and war-no- more!

Vietnam combat vets have a lot of baggage they need to contend with, depending on how much blood they got on their hands...and how much of it was their enemies, their buddies, or their own. Combat Veterans of the Nam may or may not have been wounded physically, but have deep emotional, ethical and psychological scars. Most were just young boys who were like I was, gung-ho naive. We patriotically answered our countries call, and were made to kill and suffer killing, ravaged with the aftermath of learning hatreds and fearing, the skills of killing, Agent Orange and ptsd effecting many "boys next door" with life threatening maladies that still are a vital part of our lives today. I also have been exposed, numerous times, to that chemical miracle wonder that causes birth defects, cancers, diabetes, liver, heart and kidney problems....

There needs to be understanding, love and healing. Our nation must learn there is a better way to solve disputes. These are but some of my poems...I ask you to please read them before you judge:

"A Combat Soldiers Prayer," http://PZZZZ.tripod.com/prayer.html

"My Thousand Yard Stare," http://pzzzz.tripod.com/stare.html

“I Felt I’d Died,” http://Knights_Lance.tripod.com/vietnamwarpoems.html

“Soldiers Of The Wall,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/wall.html

“A Soldier’s Seven guardian Angels,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/sevenangels.html

"A Soldier’s Legacy," http://PZZZZ.tripod.com/warrior.html

“Papason,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/papason.html

“Just Before The Battle Mother,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/battlemother.html

“i’m no hero,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/hero.html

-- Gary Jacobson (pgriz@hotmail.com), December 12, 2000

Answers

A very nice site and an important perspective on the war. I was too young to worry about being drafted, but I remember the TV reports of the war, and I've since made acquaintances of several people who served there. Because I knew how important the Vietnam war was to our collective psyche, when I had the chance (I was working overseas), I visited Vietnam - right after it was officially legal to travel there in 1994.

Interestingly enough, the Vietnamese I met (from both the former North and South Vietnams) had - outwardly at least - put the war behind them. They were much more interested in developing free enterprise and getting access to consumer goods and western culture than they were in harboring old grudges. I even stayed in a small hotel in Hanoi owned by an ex-NVA colonel who was now catering to foreign tourists.

The primary impression I left with was that they don't blame us for anything - it was a tragedy for all involved. And the main lesson I learned was that - from their perspective - the war wasn't about us at all. It was a civil war that we just happened to get involved in, as had the French before us.

But it is a beautiful country and the people are very friendly. I'd love to get the chance to go back.

-- John Kantor (jkantor@mindspring.com), December 12, 2000.