THE ENEMY IS

“Still in Saigon in My Mind,” CDB sang for me

‘Cause he knew that’s where my head would be

Just a farm boy looking for my immortal glory

And found a shortcut to the family’s mortuary.

As a hero I was to be proved to be a perfect ass

A mud sloggin’, dirt-dumb FNG with no class

Crouched in a hole when the VC mortars came

It actually made Jump School seem damn tame.

The first Viet Cong I saw was stone cold dead

He had no face and lost half of his tiny head

I threw up hard until it surely hurt and I cried

Over this enemy of mine, a little boy who died.

God knows that I love our flag, that dear Old Glory

But what we are doing here is quite different story

Body counts is how our great leaders try to keep score

Kill ‘em all, God’ll sort’em out till there ain’t no more.

Why was it we couldn’t fight like we wanted to win

Why did we get involved in a fight we didn’t begin

The French had lost so many men in Den Bien Phu

They pulled out long before that war was through.

So here we come to save the day and win victory

Only it ain’t goin’ down like that in the real history

But politics aside that war was a lot more personal

It hurt our bodies and minds by destroying our morale.

Second Place in the Great Southeast Asia War Game

Beaten by a people who we can’t really try to blame

And no matter what you have to say or mean to discuss

The fact remains, “We has met the enemy and he is us.”

© Spider ‘09

Awarded 3/29/2009