The Sixties--1966 Poem by Sandy Fulton

1966
That winter the ancient coal furnace
beneath my Newport apartment
shuddered to death.
To keep from freezing I hung out in restaurants.

One night at a nearby table
I saw a Navy lieutenant.
Red hair, like mine.
His name was John,
fifth child in a southern sharecropper's family
so poor they enlisted him in the Marines
at the age of fourteen
to have one less child to feed.

Twenty-two years later, when we met, he was
ex-Marine, ex-mercenary,
black belt kickboxer, sky diver,
pilot, crop duster,
artist of astonishing gifts, poet, story writer,
lover of good music, Mensa genius.

Wallet drained by alimony and child support.

Said he'd been in too many battles
from New Britain to Sidi Slimane,
Shanghai to Dien Bien Phu.
Shooting and being shot at had made him sensitive.

He'd known John Birch personally,
despised him, said the loudmouthed creep was fragged
by American officers.
John wasn't sorry about it.
Despite that,
he championed, as I did,
every minority that had to endure white supremacy,
and claimed to be a pacifist.
I wondered.
Beneath those quiet Southern manners
simmered a furious disillusioned man
who knew the difference between
"America—love it or leave it" and
"America—love it and make it better! "