John Samuel Tieman: My Lai
March 16, 1968. Fifty years ago, U. S. soldiers killed as many as 504 unarmed Vietnamese civilians. Perhaps the worst war crime in American history. Two years after that, I … Continue reading
W. D. Ehrhart: Beautiful Wreckage
In Vietnamese, Con Thien means
place of angels. What if it really was
instead of the place of rotting sandbags,
incoming heavy artillery, rats and mud.
Doug Anderson: Operation Badger Tooth
Once a year, on December 25, a darkness comes up from the earth into my life. On December 24th, nineteen sixty-seven, a battalion landing team comprised of three infantry companies … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: My War as a Clarinetist
“One time, the band played a welcoming ceremony for these grunts – and I mean they walked right out of the bush and into “Stars and Stripes Forever.” John Samuel … Continue reading
Sam Hamill: True Peace
Half broken on that smoky night, hunched over sake in a serviceman’s dive somewhere in Naha, Okinawa, nearly fifty years ago, I read of the Saigon Buddhist monks who stopped … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: Editing
–for Denis Lane This other Nam vet comes to see me and wants me to see his manuscript. He brings this nosh, some bagels, so I say OK, let’s … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: Ghost Story
the starlings swirling and loud you’d think the years would put the thing to rest you’d think the words would hurry the drive to silence still it comes and goes … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: Ordinary War
You ever wonder why, on the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in D. C., the names are not listed alphabetically? The tourist guide answer says something about listing them by date, thus … Continue reading
