we promise one another - poems from an asian war
published by the IMEP. Washington, D,C, 1971.
what a sight!
550, 000 GI' s in Vietnam
by the phong
TRANSLATED BY ĐÀM XUÂN CẬN
Thế Phong is an airman working with the press office of the Vietnamese Air Force.
He spent two years working for the American military in Vietnam and was a lecturer
in politics at the Vũng tàu training center which produced cadres for the Government
of the Republic of Vietnam's pacification program. Working closely with the American
military in South Việtnam, he has had an opportunity to observe the effect the presence
of Gi's has had on Vietnamese society. Many of his poems contain lurid details of the
action of Americans in Việtnam. Included here are excerpts from a long poem.
DON LUCE and ...
Well, well
Our friends
The Americans have arrived in our country.
They have manpower,
They have money,
They have munitions
( the recipes of the magic formulas, )
And there are 500,000 of them.
Deserted places
Become military bases .
Petrified,
Stupefied,
We Vietnamese see American establishments mushrooming:
Cam Ranh Bay, Chu Lai, Tân sơn Nhứt, Biên Hòa ...
How many have died ?
We don' t know .
The dead never aked to be counted
Or even to be remembered.
We can only be sure of one thing :
We will never suffer over- population.
For the survivors
Each grain of rice we eat
Is imported from wast fields in California.
Germany and Korea are divided countries too,
But they' re doing all right - -
While we suffer in the most cruel and obscene way,
What an irony !
I' ve been walking the roads of my beloved land;
One fternoon when I stopped, terribly hungry,
What have I tell you ?
Where can I ask
For a clean breathing space ?
In thousands of bars from muddy Pleiku,
Kontum buried in the mud,
To dusty Nha Trang, Đà Nẵng,
Our girls brazenly ply their trade to sex- straved GI's - -
Coloreds,
Whites,
Reds,
Blacks,
Democracy protectors !
Freedom fighters !
I' ve seen them all !
Anyplace they set foot on
They are followed by our women and girls,
The fun-makers par excellence.
As for you,
You must produce passes
When ou come down to any of these places.
Don't yous see signboards
Reading Locals, Keep Out ?
Without respite
Day and night
Our country exposes itself to rockets and bombs,
Hundreds of raids are being carried out daily .
In an office there was a Vietnamese woman
Whose officer husband was away;
She had a cute son,
He could mumble a few words.
He wept and screamed,
Scared of his mother's American visitors;
Unlike her,
He was not a bit impressed by dollars;
Shaking his head
Shouting louder,
Broken into tears,
He called his father's name.
His father had long been denied a leave,
He was leading his troops
Against the nemy in the highlands,
The woman worked for the Americans
To get money,
And that would be that - -
She thought.
The American oficer who employed her
thought differently,
He said: I will help you,
Your husband is an army officer,
He is my best friend ...'
Not long after that
He fell madly in love with her.
One rainy evening
He proposed to drive her home.
It rained,
It rained,
The car smoothly on the road
When suddenly he pressed the brake pedal.
The car didn't overturn
But she was trapped .
Holding ther tight
In his two hairy arms
He kissed her savagely,
Then raped her in the back seat.
He gave her all the MPC * he had,
A lot of money
That night
Her child went to bed early,
Unaware the officer had taken the place of his father.
In the bed of his parents
The next morning
He got up
Amazed to see so many MPC. *
He did not like them
And tore them to pieces
Calling to his mother.
Startled
She rushed to him
Handed him a parcel of candies
Telling him it was from his father in the war zone.
Jubilant
He held tight his present,
Mumbling his father's name ...
I have a question
To ask good American like Bernard Fall,
Who wrote The two Vietnam, dicussing problem in both
The North and South.
Who died in Vietnamese soil
In the field trip with the US marins in Quảng Trị.
I want to ask good Americans
Like the Us missionary
Who tried to learn about us
And to do good things in the name of Christ .
You are people of wisdom,
People of strength;
But are you honest enough
To admit the silly mistakes your fellow country men committed
In the name of friendship !
I for one cannot entertain
The prospect of your girls becoming prostitutes
And boy pimps.
This land of ours count on you,
Men who are not Communists,
Men who have convictions,
Men who have dignity,
Men do not allow wives to work for Americans
Men who bring salvation.
I know you will feel hunilated.
I tell you
You must learn American
If you want to know
What the hell is going on ...
SAIGON, OCTOBER 22, 1968
thephong
( from WE PROMISE ONE ANOTHER / Don Luce, John C. Schafer & Jacquelyn Chagnon selected.
Published by The Indochina Moblile Education Project. Washington, D.C, 1971 - p. 33 - 39 )
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* Military Payment Certificates ( MPC) are issued to service-men as currency for military-operated facilities and services provided in Vietnam. They are issued in lieu of ' the green dollar' .
( DON LUCE' S NOTE )
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