I saw a photograph of a 70 year old Vietnamese grandmother (poem)

I saw a photograph of a 70 year old Vietnamese grandmother

I saw a photograph

of a 70 year old Vietnamese grandmother

transporting 600 pounds

of military supplies

by using a bicycle

without rubber for the tires,

with 300 pounds

somehow balanced on each side

of the handlebars.

The soldiers needed

the supplies

and grandma was willing

to risk terrible hardship,

and possible death

to see that the soldiers

got the guns, food, ammunition,

and medical supplies

that they needed.

What I took from this was

that if a 70 year old woman

is willing to transport

600 pounds of

ANYTHING,

much less bombs, grenades, rifles,

ammunition, food, medical supplies…

through a dense suffocating jungle,

while thousands of bombs fall from the sky,

trying to kill her,

then the message is clear,

she is telling you,

GET OUT!

Get the FUCK OUT!!

Get the FUCK OUT RIGHT NOW…

We should have listened to her.

58,000 (of us) dead

1.5 million (of them) dead

 if you add in,

and why wouldn’t you,

Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia…

that number rises to 3.5 million.

150,000 US wounded,

1,600 MIA….

Many scars live on the inside.

In our nightmares.

Some say there are still men over there.

I don’t know the answer to that question.

But if it’s true, these men would be

70 years old now,

and would have to have survived

more than 40 years of brutality

and torture.

It’s just too much.

How does that make you feel?

 http://idiocracy23.blogspot.com/2016/06/john-hulse-collected-poems-1985-2015.html