August 1969
Just had this feeling something bad was going
to happen. Something bad. And the sensation you
get in your stomach at the thought of it, a premonition,
if you like. Gut instinct.
I have no business going on this operation.
It’s the Captain’s idea, and I think he really
doesn‘t like me. Shouldn’t have said he was
too gung ho.
Tried to get out of it. Tried every excuse, but
nothing changed his mind. Nothing. I’m sounding
like a coward, a shirker, like I don’t love it.
“Get your gear and get on board,” he says.
We fly together, the Captain, another member of the
team, and me, to the home of an infantry battalion,
the guys really fighting this war. I’m a stranger
among them.
Late in the day, it’s soon chow time, C Rations,
ham and lima beans, the worst possible choice.
Just sit on the ground and try to eat, try to ignore the
layer of fat in the can. Hunger can overcome a lot.
Feeling really alone. Not knowing anyone, not fitting in.
These guys are living the war at a level I don’t have to
endure. After tomorrow, I’m going back to my nice cot
and cold beer.
Night falls, I find my way to a bunker, one of
many built into the piled-up dirt wall that forms
our main perimeter. Bunkers filled with the
unconscious bodies of exhausted soldiers.
The ribbed steel plate on the floor makes it impossible
to sleep. The other guys there are too tired to be
uncomfortable. That’s another difference between us,
between real and occasional soldiers like me.
So, I stumble out into the night, a wall of sloping
dirt mounds up to one side, to the other, flat ground.
A light rain is falling, and, with my poncho clutched
around me, I lie down in the dirt against the hill.
This is not a big space, maybe three hundred feet
across, round shaped. In the center, a huge
self-propelled cannon is firing rounds on schedule
throughout the night.
With clockwork precision, they call out the drill,
and then a thunderous loud noise erupts like
the tearing of air you hear when close lightning
flashes pink in your eyes.
In the relative quiet between rounds, hood-up
in the rain, the tiny buzzing noise of a mosquito near my
ear intrudes and irritates. Resigned to misery, staring into
the blurry, dark sky.
There will be no sleep tonight, and tomorrow I’m going
out with a platoon, maybe 20 guys, a Lieutenant in charge,
the one I met last evening in the fading light, a cursory
introduction.
The bleakness of the night gives way to a dazzling,
bright morning. We meet for briefing, then board several
helicopters that will take us somewhere east of Trang Bang,
I think.
Landing. Jumping out. An adrenaline rush.
No one is talking. We’re on the ground in a moment,
crouching low, the noise of the choppers fading in
the clear morning sky.
It’s not often I jump out of helicopters in the middle
of nowhere, in a field of scrub and low trees.
This red dirt reminds me of Georgia! Nearing the
end of my tour, no wonder I’m thinking of home.
But there’s a long hike ahead to where we will deploy.
With the Lieutenant leading the way, we travel through
woods and fields until, by map and compass, we find our
chosen spot.
Imagine several bomb craters twenty feet across.
The shattered vegetation, trees, bushes, vines, is a mixture
of the living and the dead. Young growth of trees to our
front. Peaceful. Shady. Concealment.
We take up positions in the craters, every man
at the ready, but then there’s really not much
to do until the sweep arrives. We keep in radio
contact. It’s past midday and stifling hot.
An air of relaxation develops and guys break
out C Rations, lounge around, lean into masses
of bushes behind us. I start to do the same when
I hear, “STOP!”
A Sergeant sees something suspicious, a simple,
smooth, wooden rod rising from the ground inside
the bush at my back. Something isn’t right. He’s
seen this type before.
Yes, this is a booby-trap. Buried beneath the bush,
an explosive charge awaits. If anything moves that stick
enough, it will trigger the deadly blast of a big artillery
shell, a dud round turned against us.
We stay put and wait until the sweep eventually
approaches. Plastic explosive is rigged to blow the
shell when we leave and are clear of this place of
looming destruction.
The fuse is set and then, BOOM! The earth flies in the air,
rains down on us from 100 yards away. There’s
laughter. “How close was that! We’d all be dead!”
Laughter, some hardy, some hollow.
We join the others and sweep to Highway 1.
Waiting by the side of the road for a ride to
some base, it’s raining now, and I’m soaking wet,
shivering cold.
That night, back in Cu Chi, in dry clothes, showered
and fed a decent meal, the stress of the day gathers in
exhaustion, in a feeling of unreality at the change.
Tonight, I’ll sleep in drunken peace.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2026
VWP 2026 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Nearing the End
In the dark of the tent, dark and hot like an oven,
leaders have gathered for briefing. The Colonel’s
mirrored sunglasses are menacing as we go over
the plans.
Captain says his troops are ready to pounce.
He’s got them pumped up, and they’re going
to rush in and capture the enemy supposedly
hiding in the hamlet.
I join the Colonel in his chopper, while the
troops load into theirs. With us in the
lead, my scout will guide us and mark
the target.
Except the scout is disoriented. We’re flying so
low, he’s about to drop his smoke grenade on
the wrong hamlet! Somehow, I take over and
find our way there.
And there is a fallow, open field on the edge of a
little arrangement of huts, the kind with dirt floors
and thatched roofs. Living close to the earth, these
are simple people who farm the land and raise pigs.
They’re surrounded, ordered out into an open space,
bare, red, and hard. This isn’t the rainy season.
Old men, old women, children and young mothers,
some with infants. No enemy. Gone.
Every hooch is searched. If the enemy was here,
there must be collaborators. Soldiers scatter
belongings, overturn baskets and pots,
trying to find anything, something.
Here is a guilty one! A young mother holding
an infant child, we’ve found vials of antibiotics
in her hut. It’s clear she must be one of the
enemy. Maybe a nurse?
The Colonel says, Burn it down, very matter-of-
factly. The Zippos come out, and just like that
her house is in flames, the thatched roof, an inferno.
Acrid smoke engulfs us as we watch.
Several old men, some with missing
limbs, are rounded up and a helicopter arrives
to take them in for questioning. Not a good
prospect. No doubt they’ll be tortured.
Rotor wash stirs the smoke into corkscrew
patterns. It’s time to load the prisoners,
and the order is given, Get her baby away from
her, now! I hesitate. Now! Do it now!
Moving to her, looking into her fear drawn face,
I grab her baby, her infant child, and wrest it from her arms.
She’s desperate to hold on, but can’t and,
losing her grip, emits a piercing shriek of terror.
Here! Turning to an old man, missing half his
teeth, I shove the bawling baby at him, callously
push the mother to the helicopter to join the others.
I’m gripped by unreality, a feeling of desperation.
I must leave this place! The company will
sweep back to the base where we began. I get
a Lieutenant to take care of my scout, and
jump on the chopper as it prepares to lift off.
God help me! Trying not to look at the prisoners,
but I can’t avoid seeing the young mother, cowering,
neither of us knowing then she would die at the hands
of her interrogators.
I find a ride back to Cu Chi in a convoy.
The acne-scarred hillbilly driver suddenly swerves
to run over a pig by the side of the road. Turning to me,
he grimaces with mischievous joy!
And makes a squeal that rivals the painful throes
of the enormous pig pinned under the wheels. A
chorus of cries: The hillbilly cackle, the poor sow,
and the screams of villagers standing in witness.
Two worlds, a mirror image in this moment, are
blended. I take their voices for my shattered self.
In never-ending dissonance, they echo through the
emptiness of my hardened heart.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2026
VWP 2026 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Death Car
On childhood summer nights,
Neighborhood kids play
A game called “Death Car,”
Gathering on the lawn we await
The approach of a car whose
Headlights we must avoid by
Running to a place of safety,
Behind a hedge or tree,
Anywhere to keep from risking
Make believe death by light,
A simple task, but there’s the
Chance you’re caught in the open,
In no man’s land, and if that happens,
You have to call out “Medic!”
And wait for someone to come
Save you with the prick of a spiny
Leaf in this perilous moment
Of innocent play.
Years past by and I walk with other
Soldiers in a swamp, searching
For a fleeing enemy whose camp we
Discovered where rice still boils in a pot,
Retreating from our sudden arrival in
Helicopter turbulence, blades beating
The air in cacophonous early morning chaos.
We form a line and sweep forward,
Not sure what lies ahead, but in the gut
Is fear and anticipation soon borne out in
The eruption of desperate gunfire coming
From the enemy who make a stand,
Their bullets, flying all around, strike
A soldier near me, his limp body
Collapsing into the knee-deep water,
Running to him in a crouch, I lift him
From the mire and call, “Medic!”
He’s badly wounded, bleeding from
A chest wound, eyes rolled back in his head,
Slipping into pale unconsciousness, and
In spite of the medic’s efforts, he dies.
The battle over, the numbness of draining
Emotion grips me like a trance, masks
The reality of what has happened and
Leaves me in a foggy state, not able to
Comprehend the horror or feel remorse
For all the killing, but oddly, I remember
Those childhood summer nights when a
Cry of “Medic!” was spoken with such
Earnestness, but without real consequence,
The kind I now confront in this cold, stark
Reality of brutal, senseless death.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2025
VWP 2025 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Painting
When I confront the evil held within,
And crumble like the driest leaves of winter,
Sinking into an abyss of deep depression,
An attitude of unrelenting self-loathing,
Unable to find forgiveness or understanding,
Only, once more, to excoriate the wounds,
To experience perverse pleasure in pain,
The sole outcome of my personal assessment.
My painting returns to the same motif:
A road winds right and then goes left
Toward dark hills and mountains in the far distance,
Eventually the tree forms appear that could
Also be distorted figures, dripping paint
As if they bleed and stripped bare of any
Sign of life, standing starkly in this empty
Landscape, the only sign of civilization, the
Rutted road to some far horizon beyond
My, beyond anyone’s sight.
I’m both the observer and creator of this scene,
The passive and active forces at work to make
A world that resonates emotionally with what
I feel, or rather what I don’t feel inside,
In the guarded grip of dark memories, of things
Some part of me can’t face without overwhelming
Shame and guilt, things reflected in the emptiness
Of the landscape and the road going away, leaving
All this behind until it forces itself back into
Consciousness and lives again in brushstrokes,
Crudely carving out a world of emptiness, of
Indifference, of persistent numbness and regret.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2025
VWP 2025 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Preservation of the Mind
When I see roadkill on a drive,
An animal that has met with violent death,
It never fails to trigger memories of dead
Victims of war, those torn apart in unimagined
Ways that cause revulsion, a need to turn
Away in horror, in disbelief, and then denial,
But having witnessed all too much of this,
One learns to separate feeling from seeing,
A reflexive negation of its very meaning,
So the mind finds, instead, another response,
Like when I saw the enemy soldier’s head,
How it had been blown apart and the brain
Was missing, so I could peer into the bloody cavity
And appreciate its color, a deep burgundy with
Bright red and hints of blue, and say to myself,
What a lovely mix of hues, like a dramatic sunset sky
That inspires awe, the kind of colors found in nature’s
Myriad palette, maybe a butterfly wing or the breast
Of an exotic bird, possibly the rising moon before an
Ominous storm, anything but what it really is.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2025
VWP 2025 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Just had this feeling something bad was going
to happen. Something bad. And the sensation you
get in your stomach at the thought of it, a premonition,
if you like. Gut instinct.
I have no business going on this operation.
It’s the Captain’s idea, and I think he really
doesn‘t like me. Shouldn’t have said he was
too gung ho.
Tried to get out of it. Tried every excuse, but
nothing changed his mind. Nothing. I’m sounding
like a coward, a shirker, like I don’t love it.
“Get your gear and get on board,” he says.
We fly together, the Captain, another member of the
team, and me, to the home of an infantry battalion,
the guys really fighting this war. I’m a stranger
among them.
Late in the day, it’s soon chow time, C Rations,
ham and lima beans, the worst possible choice.
Just sit on the ground and try to eat, try to ignore the
layer of fat in the can. Hunger can overcome a lot.
Feeling really alone. Not knowing anyone, not fitting in.
These guys are living the war at a level I don’t have to
endure. After tomorrow, I’m going back to my nice cot
and cold beer.
Night falls, I find my way to a bunker, one of
many built into the piled-up dirt wall that forms
our main perimeter. Bunkers filled with the
unconscious bodies of exhausted soldiers.
The ribbed steel plate on the floor makes it impossible
to sleep. The other guys there are too tired to be
uncomfortable. That’s another difference between us,
between real and occasional soldiers like me.
So, I stumble out into the night, a wall of sloping
dirt mounds up to one side, to the other, flat ground.
A light rain is falling, and, with my poncho clutched
around me, I lie down in the dirt against the hill.
This is not a big space, maybe three hundred feet
across, round shaped. In the center, a huge
self-propelled cannon is firing rounds on schedule
throughout the night.
With clockwork precision, they call out the drill,
and then a thunderous loud noise erupts like
the tearing of air you hear when close lightning
flashes pink in your eyes.
In the relative quiet between rounds, hood-up
in the rain, the tiny buzzing noise of a mosquito near my
ear intrudes and irritates. Resigned to misery, staring into
the blurry, dark sky.
There will be no sleep tonight, and tomorrow I’m going
out with a platoon, maybe 20 guys, a Lieutenant in charge,
the one I met last evening in the fading light, a cursory
introduction.
The bleakness of the night gives way to a dazzling,
bright morning. We meet for briefing, then board several
helicopters that will take us somewhere east of Trang Bang,
I think.
Landing. Jumping out. An adrenaline rush.
No one is talking. We’re on the ground in a moment,
crouching low, the noise of the choppers fading in
the clear morning sky.
It’s not often I jump out of helicopters in the middle
of nowhere, in a field of scrub and low trees.
This red dirt reminds me of Georgia! Nearing the
end of my tour, no wonder I’m thinking of home.
But there’s a long hike ahead to where we will deploy.
With the Lieutenant leading the way, we travel through
woods and fields until, by map and compass, we find our
chosen spot.
Imagine several bomb craters twenty feet across.
The shattered vegetation, trees, bushes, vines, is a mixture
of the living and the dead. Young growth of trees to our
front. Peaceful. Shady. Concealment.
We take up positions in the craters, every man
at the ready, but then there’s really not much
to do until the sweep arrives. We keep in radio
contact. It’s past midday and stifling hot.
An air of relaxation develops and guys break
out C Rations, lounge around, lean into masses
of bushes behind us. I start to do the same when
I hear, “STOP!”
A Sergeant sees something suspicious, a simple,
smooth, wooden rod rising from the ground inside
the bush at my back. Something isn’t right. He’s
seen this type before.
Yes, this is a booby-trap. Buried beneath the bush,
an explosive charge awaits. If anything moves that stick
enough, it will trigger the deadly blast of a big artillery
shell, a dud round turned against us.
We stay put and wait until the sweep eventually
approaches. Plastic explosive is rigged to blow the
shell when we leave and are clear of this place of
looming destruction.
The fuse is set and then, BOOM! The earth flies in the air,
rains down on us from 100 yards away. There’s
laughter. “How close was that! We’d all be dead!”
Laughter, some hardy, some hollow.
We join the others and sweep to Highway 1.
Waiting by the side of the road for a ride to
some base, it’s raining now, and I’m soaking wet,
shivering cold.
That night, back in Cu Chi, in dry clothes, showered
and fed a decent meal, the stress of the day gathers in
exhaustion, in a feeling of unreality at the change.
Tonight, I’ll sleep in drunken peace.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2026
VWP 2026 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Nearing the End
In the dark of the tent, dark and hot like an oven,
leaders have gathered for briefing. The Colonel’s
mirrored sunglasses are menacing as we go over
the plans.
Captain says his troops are ready to pounce.
He’s got them pumped up, and they’re going
to rush in and capture the enemy supposedly
hiding in the hamlet.
I join the Colonel in his chopper, while the
troops load into theirs. With us in the
lead, my scout will guide us and mark
the target.
Except the scout is disoriented. We’re flying so
low, he’s about to drop his smoke grenade on
the wrong hamlet! Somehow, I take over and
find our way there.
And there is a fallow, open field on the edge of a
little arrangement of huts, the kind with dirt floors
and thatched roofs. Living close to the earth, these
are simple people who farm the land and raise pigs.
They’re surrounded, ordered out into an open space,
bare, red, and hard. This isn’t the rainy season.
Old men, old women, children and young mothers,
some with infants. No enemy. Gone.
Every hooch is searched. If the enemy was here,
there must be collaborators. Soldiers scatter
belongings, overturn baskets and pots,
trying to find anything, something.
Here is a guilty one! A young mother holding
an infant child, we’ve found vials of antibiotics
in her hut. It’s clear she must be one of the
enemy. Maybe a nurse?
The Colonel says, Burn it down, very matter-of-
factly. The Zippos come out, and just like that
her house is in flames, the thatched roof, an inferno.
Acrid smoke engulfs us as we watch.
Several old men, some with missing
limbs, are rounded up and a helicopter arrives
to take them in for questioning. Not a good
prospect. No doubt they’ll be tortured.
Rotor wash stirs the smoke into corkscrew
patterns. It’s time to load the prisoners,
and the order is given, Get her baby away from
her, now! I hesitate. Now! Do it now!
Moving to her, looking into her fear drawn face,
I grab her baby, her infant child, and wrest it from her arms.
She’s desperate to hold on, but can’t and,
losing her grip, emits a piercing shriek of terror.
Here! Turning to an old man, missing half his
teeth, I shove the bawling baby at him, callously
push the mother to the helicopter to join the others.
I’m gripped by unreality, a feeling of desperation.
I must leave this place! The company will
sweep back to the base where we began. I get
a Lieutenant to take care of my scout, and
jump on the chopper as it prepares to lift off.
God help me! Trying not to look at the prisoners,
but I can’t avoid seeing the young mother, cowering,
neither of us knowing then she would die at the hands
of her interrogators.
I find a ride back to Cu Chi in a convoy.
The acne-scarred hillbilly driver suddenly swerves
to run over a pig by the side of the road. Turning to me,
he grimaces with mischievous joy!
And makes a squeal that rivals the painful throes
of the enormous pig pinned under the wheels. A
chorus of cries: The hillbilly cackle, the poor sow,
and the screams of villagers standing in witness.
Two worlds, a mirror image in this moment, are
blended. I take their voices for my shattered self.
In never-ending dissonance, they echo through the
emptiness of my hardened heart.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2026
VWP 2026 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Death Car
On childhood summer nights,
Neighborhood kids play
A game called “Death Car,”
Gathering on the lawn we await
The approach of a car whose
Headlights we must avoid by
Running to a place of safety,
Behind a hedge or tree,
Anywhere to keep from risking
Make believe death by light,
A simple task, but there’s the
Chance you’re caught in the open,
In no man’s land, and if that happens,
You have to call out “Medic!”
And wait for someone to come
Save you with the prick of a spiny
Leaf in this perilous moment
Of innocent play.
Years past by and I walk with other
Soldiers in a swamp, searching
For a fleeing enemy whose camp we
Discovered where rice still boils in a pot,
Retreating from our sudden arrival in
Helicopter turbulence, blades beating
The air in cacophonous early morning chaos.
We form a line and sweep forward,
Not sure what lies ahead, but in the gut
Is fear and anticipation soon borne out in
The eruption of desperate gunfire coming
From the enemy who make a stand,
Their bullets, flying all around, strike
A soldier near me, his limp body
Collapsing into the knee-deep water,
Running to him in a crouch, I lift him
From the mire and call, “Medic!”
He’s badly wounded, bleeding from
A chest wound, eyes rolled back in his head,
Slipping into pale unconsciousness, and
In spite of the medic’s efforts, he dies.
The battle over, the numbness of draining
Emotion grips me like a trance, masks
The reality of what has happened and
Leaves me in a foggy state, not able to
Comprehend the horror or feel remorse
For all the killing, but oddly, I remember
Those childhood summer nights when a
Cry of “Medic!” was spoken with such
Earnestness, but without real consequence,
The kind I now confront in this cold, stark
Reality of brutal, senseless death.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2025
VWP 2025 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Painting
When I confront the evil held within,
And crumble like the driest leaves of winter,
Sinking into an abyss of deep depression,
An attitude of unrelenting self-loathing,
Unable to find forgiveness or understanding,
Only, once more, to excoriate the wounds,
To experience perverse pleasure in pain,
The sole outcome of my personal assessment.
My painting returns to the same motif:
A road winds right and then goes left
Toward dark hills and mountains in the far distance,
Eventually the tree forms appear that could
Also be distorted figures, dripping paint
As if they bleed and stripped bare of any
Sign of life, standing starkly in this empty
Landscape, the only sign of civilization, the
Rutted road to some far horizon beyond
My, beyond anyone’s sight.
I’m both the observer and creator of this scene,
The passive and active forces at work to make
A world that resonates emotionally with what
I feel, or rather what I don’t feel inside,
In the guarded grip of dark memories, of things
Some part of me can’t face without overwhelming
Shame and guilt, things reflected in the emptiness
Of the landscape and the road going away, leaving
All this behind until it forces itself back into
Consciousness and lives again in brushstrokes,
Crudely carving out a world of emptiness, of
Indifference, of persistent numbness and regret.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2025
VWP 2025 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Preservation of the Mind
When I see roadkill on a drive,
An animal that has met with violent death,
It never fails to trigger memories of dead
Victims of war, those torn apart in unimagined
Ways that cause revulsion, a need to turn
Away in horror, in disbelief, and then denial,
But having witnessed all too much of this,
One learns to separate feeling from seeing,
A reflexive negation of its very meaning,
So the mind finds, instead, another response,
Like when I saw the enemy soldier’s head,
How it had been blown apart and the brain
Was missing, so I could peer into the bloody cavity
And appreciate its color, a deep burgundy with
Bright red and hints of blue, and say to myself,
What a lovely mix of hues, like a dramatic sunset sky
That inspires awe, the kind of colors found in nature’s
Myriad palette, maybe a butterfly wing or the breast
Of an exotic bird, possibly the rising moon before an
Ominous storm, anything but what it really is.
by Contributing Poet Karl Michel Copyright © 2025
VWP 2025 First published in VietnamWarPoetry.com
Bio: Karl Michel: I served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969 with the 25th Infantry Division. Four years after returning from the war, I suffered a mental breakdown that included visual and auditory hallucinations, and deep depression. I heard voices telling me to kill myself. In addition to beginning psychotherapy, I also started making art that served as a therapeutic outlet for the emotional turmoil I was experiencing. In 2014, I started writing poetry to preserve memories of particular Vietnam experiences. Writing poetry and making visual art are both intuitive acts that draw on and expose the emotions I couldn’t feel when I was in the war. My mind suppressed those emotions as an act of self-preservation.
Except where otherwise attributed, all pages & content herein
Copyright © 2014 - 2025 Paul Hellweg VietnamWarPoetry.com All rights reserved
Westerly, Rhode Island, USA