MGB - Dien Cai Dau

Reading about the war through the perspective of Yusef Komunyakaa offers a different insight to the layers of suffering associated with the Vietnam War. Yusef is an acclaimed poet and professor who grew up in Louisiana during the Civil Rights Movement. Much of his literature revolves around an intense theme of race. Dien Cai Dau is one of his written works that highlights that the war was not only a battle against Vietnam, it was also a fight for respect and equality in the Army. Yusef worked as a correspondent managing editor for the Southern Cross, and thus had multiple reported feedbacks on experiences of the Vietnam War.

Many of the poems hint at barriers and social inequalities within the hardship of war. A Break from the Bush is a poem that focuses on the downtime of war not in country. The Buddha grass and crashing waves create a peaceful setting that is vacation life, despite the sounds of far off ammunition. “Machine guns can be heard, pretending we’re somewhere else, we play harder” (p. 27). The men playing volleyball are still innocent from the future. “CJ who in three days will trip a fragmentation mine, runs after the ball into the whitecaps laughing” p. 27). From the narrator’s perspective as an African American, it is also important to note that all the men are relaxing together. There are no barriers relating to race shown in this poem. Instead, the theme is the irony of Vietnam’s beautiful land and beauty of the young soldiers coming together in the middle of a hideous war.

To Have Danced With Death is a poignant poem about a “black sergeant first class” who is unrecognized for his valor. He displays lots of medals and obviously had a higher commanding position than the narrator. The narrator seems to use words of awe and sadness to describe the African American sergeant. He identifies with him on race and is proud of his rank. Yet the sadness comes from the war injury and the fact that “the room of blue eyes averted his (the sergeants) “. The room of blue eyes shows the separation between the men of different races in the army. The fact the author chose blue eyes meant to show this. They could have averted their eyes in respect to ignore his limping or because of his race, it is debatable. But the theme of separation is prevalent in this poem because of the author’s word choice.

The time period and war back home in the states is also incorporated in many of Yusef’s poems. In Report from the Skulls Diorama, the narrator dreams of Martin Luther King Jr. This just shows how African Americans were effected and anxious by the civil rights movement just as war as the war abroad. They were more isolated from the civil rights movement and this poem hints the narrator’s frustration with the situation. He talked about how “these men have lost their tongues…the silence etched into their skin is also mine”. I think this refers to all young men fighting in the war. As an African American, his rights are silenced politically and socially in the states and even in areas of the war. Yet all drafted soldiers, including Vietnamese soldiers are silenced about their opinion on the war. The true experiences are replaced by propaganda for the world to see. African American soldiers share the feeling of oppression with the young Vietnamese soldiers. This is shown through Yusef’s line, “VC didn’t kill Martin Luther King” p. 46. He wants to put guilt to Caucasian Americans.