The Sixties--1963 Poem by Sandy Fulton

1963
This was the year I first concerned myself
with a far-off land called Vietnam.
Even went there for four days temporary duty
which meant nothing at the time,
just another SeaBees inspection.

Back at Pearl Harbor,
each morning I strapped on my trusty.45,
trudged over the gravel to CincPac,
picked up the Top Secret dispatches,
read about our client dictator
who was wantonly crueler than most of them,
and stupider.

Huntley-Brinkley
had the body counts backwards.
But as long as the war wasted
none but Slopes and a few military advisors,
we forgot about it
and partied all night long
while fires raged beneath the world's surface
like the volcanoes of Big Island.

The Navy sent me to New England in the fall, to Newport
when red leaves were blowing.
Gothic mansions of the rich brooded in the fog
behind wrought-iron fences with spear points sharpened
to keep out rabble like me.
Out in the harbor the voices of bells and deep foghorns
floated on the wind like forlorn spirits.

That November someone (or more than one)
exploded John Kennedy's head.
The world changed again.
We turned cynical,
not because a President was killed
(that had happened before)
but because they affronted us with lies.