At this juncture in Dragonfly, a poem about how war and military service were seen in 1980s America, as evidenced by a news story from 1987.
Veterans Day 1987
It snowed this morning in Washington,
and I saw, on the early news,
a black gash carved from a white hillside.
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial
on a waiting-room TV in the VA hospital.
The gray-haired veteran next to me telling
about wearing his army uniform into
a tavern in 1945—they bought him
round after round. The boys finally home
for Christmas. Even after we left Vietnam,
in 1975, my haircut was brand enough.
I wouldn’t have worn my class A’s
into a civilian bar. I tried it once
in a honky-tonk in Chowchilla,
and was chased out. They wouldn’t believe
I had never been to Nam. Today, I watched
those real Vietnam vets in jeans and field jackets,
beards and berets reflected in stone.
Only 0900, but already a small legion
was mustering. The TV cut away to
the Wall Street Drill Team in a Philadelphia
parade, a platoon of men and women
in blue pinstripe suits with matched briefcases.
They opened ranks and placed the cases
in rosettes on the asphalt. Then countercolumns
and other exotic marching maneuvers.
The crowd on the street cheered,
but there wasn’t a single chuckle or even
a smile in the waiting room. In my mind,
those vets at the Vietnam Memorial are wearing
colors: a black and yellow eagle screaming
on a shield, a sable horse against a field
of gold, a sword notched in slotted stone.
No, these patches aren’t coats of arms.
They’re telegrams from a jungle, monkey howls,
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Page 38
a litany to match words cut into a wall.
But you and I know it ‘s been almost fifteen years,
and there’s the Ayatollah and Afghanistan.
The Contras. American journalists sending their love
on videos shot in some terrorist’s basement.
And somewhere the Wall Street Drill Team is marching on.
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Page 39
This poem was occasioned by my seeing on TV news a drill team of men wearing business suits and carrying briefcases on Veterans Day in 1987. I can't recall now if I made up the name "Wall Street Drill Team" or if I maybe had actually seen the Fred Hill Briefcase Drill Team pictured above. Either way, drill was seen in that 1987 news show as comedic rather than ceremonial.
As always, I'd love to get some feedback or discuss anything with all y'all. Comment, okay? Thanks. Ingat.
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