The Made For TV War

FADE IN.
EXTERIOR - SOUTH VIETNAM
The med-evac copters land, full of groans and grunts
Three in a row, swooping and hovering
First, over the hooches and then the helipad,
Waiting their turns to unload.
The wounded pour out the doors - red mixed with camouflage.
The dead take a little longer to unstrap from the skids.

The Cobra gunships fly low and fast over the hooches,
On their way to take revenge on the green mountains
of Binh Dinh Province. Their objective:
TO TERMINATE WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.

The Cobras are painted with menacing faces,
In frozen savage ritual grins
With the eyes of wounded, raging beasts
And with the sting of ten thousand snakes.

At night the black silhouette of the foothills
Light up with the hot, piercing needles of tracers;
And not far enough away
The footsteps of an angered giant could be heard:
The KRUMP…KRUMP…KRUMP…
Of the mortars being 'walked in'
To 'suspected enemy positions'. FADE OUT
They called this 'friendly fire'.

-by Mark S. Foley

Go to Mark's Page

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