NR Blog 7

"The Dead at Quang Tri" (12) is one of the many poems in the collection focused around death. This one, however, brings to light the soldiers’ recognition of their beliefs. While there are no quotation marks, most of the poem reads like a conversation. First, there is a portrayal of immeasurable amounts of pointless death as “trying to count stones on a path to nowhere”. Then there’s talk of a Buddhist boy who surely ended up dead. One yells that he won’t stay dead, bringing light to the Buddhist belief in reincarnation. When I read “The grass we walk on won’t stay down”, I picture Vietnamese soldiers still standing tall for their country, even as reincarnated blades of grass.

We’ve read about it in all the novels and we read about it again in Dien Cai Dau. "We Never Know" (26) is about a Vietnamese soldier shot down by G.Is. I am reminded of Kien and the soldier in the crater when this narrator “falls in love” after finding the photograph. We’ve already read how newer soldiers would look through the bodies of those they’d killed in an effort to see what their lives may have been like. This is just another example. Before leaving, the narrator returns the dead man’s wallet and flips him over as a gesture of respect.

"Prisoners" (35) is full of vivid imagery. The poem is set in the Chu Lai airbase. It should be noted that the base was involved in Operation Starlight in August of 1965, where Marines launched a surprise attack and prevented what would have been a Viet Cong ambush on the base. “I think some must be laughing under their dust-colored hoods, knowing rockets are aimed at Chu Lai- that the water’s evaporating and soon the nail will make contact with metal”. The narrator goes on debating the existence of a loving God while he looks at the frail prisoners. He also comments how they carry the weight of their country’s future on their shoulders. “The old ones are the hardest to break”, he says. No matter what sort of beating they’re dealt, they will not give in. Interrogators know that killing them is the only solution when the prisoners begin to pray. The narrator remembers how he found himself bowing the prisoners walking in at one point. The poem ends with a picture of a group of dead prisoners hanging from trees, looking like “marionettes hooked to strings of light”.

We can determine what Yusef thinks of the war by looking at the book’s title in english, Crazy. The three poems featured bring to light a sort of respect for the dead, a respect that bewilders American troops. They recognized that these Viet Cong were fighting their hearts out for their country, one that the Americans weren’t invited to. From walking through a field of reincarnated soldiers, to discovering the now ended life of another human, to looking up at branches bending from the weight of dead men; it’s no wonder why so many vets suffer from PTSD. They experience in real life what the rest of us see in horror films.