Purple Daze (9 page)

 

Three days later David Miller becomes the first activist arrested under the new Selective Service law for “knowingly destroying” his draft card. The FBI apprehends him at St. Anselm's College in New Hampshire where he's talking to students about pacifism and universal peace.

For centuries, this trail meandered through sparsely
populated jungle, facilitating trade in Southeast Asia
a basketry of truck crossings, river systems, primeval paths.

 

Barefoot hordes drove oxcarts and heavily-laden bicycles,
human pack animals.

 

1959
Armed conflicts escalate between the National
Liberation Front (NLF), also called Viet Cong,
and the first president of the Republic of Vietnam,
Ngo Dinh Diem.

 

1961
The People's Army of Vietnam works on
the trail and the use of motor transports escalates.

 

1965
The trail develops into an intricate network:
dirt roads peppered with supply bunkers, barracks,
hospitals, control facilities, and tunnels: hard-packed,
underground living areas with field hospitals and
command centers.

 

Motto:
Build roads to advance.
Fight the enemy to travel.

USS
Hermitage LSD-34
Pussy Patrol

 

Don,

 

Now that it's daylight savings I can start playing
golf after I knock off ship's work. With some luck
I might get on the ship's team.

 

I don't like to think about what I'm going to do
when I get out of here—besides throw a bitchin' party.

 

Guess I'll take the GED. If I don't pass
I'll be the oldest guy in high school.

 

I'm sending you a fag from Tortola,
but that's it, man,
I swear!

 

Your ex-friend,

 

“The Mick”

 

P.S. Cheryl said you might bag that
assistant pro job at the country club.
Prick!

Hi Gorgeous,

 

Five days of nonstop rain and I'm sick
of watching my yo-yo walk-the-dog,
tossing cards into my helmet,
sharpening my Kabar blade,
so I started translating the
Olyhay Iblebay
(Holy Bible) into Pig Latin:

 

 

That's
Enesisgay.
1:1.

 

Love, Phil

 

P.S. Did you really break up with Don?

USS
Hermitage LSD-34
San Juan, Puerto Rico

 

Dear Cheryl,

 

HICKORY, DICKORY, DOCK.
TWO MICE RAN UP THE CLOCK.
THE CLOCK STRUCK ONE,
BUT THE OTHER ESCAPED
WITH MINOR INJURIES.

 

WHAT'S RED AND SITS IN A CORNER?

 

Hold up to mirror:

 

SEDALBROZAR GNIWANG YBAB A

 

I didn't write all the stuff I thought
to write about but I guess this will do.

 

Love, Mickey

 

P.S. The cords to “Nowhere Man” are
hard to play if you don't use bar cords,
especially in E flat (E
_b
).

The needle sticks on “A Boy Like That” and his
I love you but I slept with your best friend
doesn't mesh with my idea of love, so I grab a pen holding it like a dagger over my journal, slashing the page into confetti and ripping it out and wadding it up and tossing it in the toilet and flushing and starting over, writing to Don, telling him how much I hate him and how he branded my heart and that I'll never forgive him for what he did, not ever, and then I drop it in the toilet and pee all over him.

Hello again—

 

I'm home now and can't stop
thinking about you, about us.

 

I've told you I love you many times,
and I truly mean it, even if I'm not
so hot at showing you.

 

I know you don't want to talk to me
right now. But maybe you could write
a letter and give it to Nancy?

 

Things could be perfect, Cheryl,
if you'd give us a second chance.

 

All my love, Don

 

P.S. I miss you!!!
P.P.S. I'm sorry!!!

* I'm lipstick
nail polish
mascara.

 

A short squat
package people
buy without
looking inside.

 

* Free Verse: Ms. Hawes's class

* HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE
I HATE DONALD DUCK

 

* Haiku: Ms. Hawes's class

(December 29, 1933–November 2, 1965)

 

A devout Quaker and father of three young children pours kerosene over his head and sets himself on fire outside Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's office at the Pentagon in an act of self-sacrifice to protest United States involvement in the Vietnam War.

USS
Hermitage LSD-34
Puerto Rico

 

Dear Cheryl,

 

Guess what?

 

I got relieved of one of my jobs.
Guide Bearer. My CO said (quote),
“What in the hell makes you think
you can laugh at everything?
This is the Navy!”

 

Me, “I know, Sir.”

 

Him, “When you can stop laughing
you can have your job back.”

 

I haven't stopped laughing.

 

That job had a lot of responsibility I
didn't need. I'd rather just be Mail PO.
Get the same thing on my uniform.

 

Love, Mickey

 

P.S. Tell Don I tried to qualify for a golf
tournament and shot a clutch 89.

Dear Cheryl,

 

Is
Ozzie and Harriet
still on TV?
I used to think that show was corny as hell.
Now I dream of being married
with a buttload of kids.

 

I'd be pretty strict.
But no spankings.
I'd never hurt a kid.
Not even here.
I don't care if orders came from
General Westmoreland.

 

I carry memories of Nancy,
praying she's still waiting for me
in that other world where she sleeps
on clean sheets and a feather pillow.

 

We're going out on operations tomorrow, so
I thought someone should know there's a few
feelings under these filthy fatigues.

 

Love, Phil

 

P.S. This goddamned country rains horse piss–just emptied out my boots again—in case you meet a POG who wants to trade places.

 

“This Thanksgiving Day we find ourselves in a foreign land assisting in the defense of the rights of free men everywhere. On this day we should offer our grateful thanks for the abundant life which we and our loved ones have been provided. May we each pray for His continued blessings and guidance upon our endeavors to assist the Vietnamese people in their struggle to attain an everlasting peace within a free society.”

 

—W. C. Westmoreland, General United States Army

 

 

Shrimp Cocktail
Crackers

 

Roast Turkey
Giblet Gravy
Mashed Potatoes
Cornbread Dressing
Cranberry Sauce
Candied Sweet Potatoes

Buttered Peas

 

Assorted Crisp Relishes
Hot Butter Buns
Butter

 

Fruitcake
Mincemeat Pie
Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream

 

Assorted Fresh Fruit
Assorted Nuts
Assorted Candy
Tea Milk Coffee

Dear Cheryl,

 

My sister sent a present with her
last letter, a stuffed duck.
We named him Daffy—
he's our “unofficial mascot.”

 

You otta see these
salt-dripping haggard rag-tags
having conversations with Daffy.
He wears a helmet (crushed beer can)
and jungle fatigues (woven razor grass).

 

Cap'n donated a soggy cigar.

 

Love ya, Phil

 

P.S. We're having Spam for Thanksgiving, probably left over from WWI.

1964
Alice and Ray Brock purchase a gothic
revival building in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.
The small, pine church is transformed into a refuge,
where young people escape
establishment pressures
and the hell of Vietnam.

 

Agitated neighbors shout at the long-haired,
nonconformists living in this
beatnik commune
.

 

Thanksgiving 1965
Arlo Guthrie, son of folk singer
Woody Guthrie, and a friend haul garbage from the
Brock's home to the city dump. Discovering it closed
for Thanksgiving, they toss the trash down a hill.

 

The pair is arrested, appearing before a blind judge,
who's unable to see the 8 x 10 glossy photos in evidence.
They plead guilty, pay a $25 fine, and clean up the mess.

 

“Alice's Restaurant Massacree” evolves into a satirical
18-minute talk-song that records the events. Later,
lyrics critical of the war are woven in.

 

Tonight our professor is lecturing about navigating
life through
enlightenment
, explaining it's possible
to be
en-lightened
without reading a tome or spending
a hundred years in a monastery.

 

He says that according to existentialists,
most problems stem from
worrying
about
the past and future.

 

I worried, still worry, about Phil—Maybe
I never loved him as much as he loved me.
Otherwise why did I stop writing?

 

Now I worry that my feelings were
parataxic distortion
—
meaning, not based on Phil's true attributes,
but on a fantasy boyfriend I conjured in my mind.

 

I stay after class to talk to the professor about it.
He says, “Never let
learning
get in the way of
loving
.”

Inbound provisions:
Hot
ammunition, maybe
even misplaced mail?

Cheryl,

 

A grunt just walked by.

 

KILL THEM ALL,
LET GOD SORT IT OUT!

 

scrawled on his flak jacket.

 

Put my dog tags in a boot.
If I hit a mine or a tripwire
that's all that'll be left.

 

Love, Phil

 

P.S. Forgot to explain POGs:
People Other than Grunts.
P.P.S. Just finished
The Carpetbaggers
.
First classic I ever read.

mom elopes with nuts & chews,
a drive-up ceremony in las vegas

 

since he owns a grocery store
we move to a new house with
tv dinners stacked in the freezer

 

salisbury steak is my favorite

 

mom and I used to get our periods
together.

 

now we're a week apart

My motel sign:

 

VACANCY

Gooks dig holes.
Two-feet deep.
Shove in Punji sticks—
18 inches of bamboo,
ends hacked to a point,
dipped in shit.

 

Stuck in holes,
camouflaged.
Neat little booby trap—
not the C-cup type.

 

Fuckin' crazy.

From the standpoint of methods in which
soldiers are wounded—mines, high-velocity
missiles, booby-traps—and the locale of the
injured—paddy fields and along waterways
where human and animal excretion is common—

 

 

Due to the lack of secure road networks in
combat areas, med-evac choppers are keystone.

 

Whole blood packaged in Styrofoam™ containers
permits storage of 48–72 hours in the field,
in anticipation of casualties.

 

Greater care of the wounded results from rapid
evacuation, ready availability of whole blood,
well-established hospitals, and advanced surgical
techniques.

USS
Hermitage LSD-34
Non-Virgin Islands

 

Dear Cheryl,

 

I can't believe you broke up with Don!

 

I'm still going out with that Chinese girl.
Her father works her to death,
I swear, 13 hours a day, 7 days a week.
They own a Chinese restaurant.

 

I sort of feel sorry for them because
they don't get hardly any business.
Her name is Yen, I'm serious.
She's from Hong Kong.