A Ballade

The Vietnam war was goin' on
And I was at Fort Hood
Sometimes feeling pretty sad.
Most times pretty good.

I'll sing of soldiers in the rain
And how its sometimes pretty hard
And tell you how it was so strange
On Tank Destroyer Boulevard.

I reported to the Orderly Room

To good old Major Moore.

Who said to me “Godammit, son

Why don’t you close the door?

I about faced and about faced

The Major Moore put on his hat.

Said “Sergeant Green, I’m leaving now

Don’t let out the cat.”

I stood there in amazement

He said, “That cat talks in Latin.”

He pretty mean and crazy

And his name in General Patton.”

Now, I know the General Reader

Will cry out sans belief.

But Major Moore strode out that door

With his secret grief.

He had just returned from Vietnam

And was thinking “Fuck the Army.”

And he was not the only one.

All of us were barmy.

Major Moore went out the door

To his Buddha garden.

The Buddha looted from Saigon

When Major Moore was parting’.

He had two guys assigned just there

To care for the flowers and trees.

You don’t believe me?  I don’t care.

This was the Seventies.

I went back to the Orderly Room

Right up to the company clerk.

“Jesus Christ what is my doom?

Where do I go for work?”

The company clerk stopped typing.

Said, “Here take a look at this.”

It was a novel he was writing

Entitled: “The Last Kiss.”

“It’s set in 1984

When everyone is dead

Except for a boy and his little dog.”

That’s really what he said.

He look at me inquiringly

As he adjusted his toupee.

He was a Mormon and a novelist

And, quite bitterly, was gay.

And he played fine jazz piano

In a melancholy way.

I read  the page and looked at him

And pronounced the writing fine.

He perked right up.  Said, “My name is Jim.

Do you really like the final line?”

I looked at Jin quite closely

And felt that I had no choice.

And said in a voice quite ghostly

“It makes me think of Joyce.”

The I picked up my duffel bag

And headed out the door

And I seemed to hear a Joplin rag

As I saw whoI stood before.

It was Sergeant Major Gilmore Davis

Who said, “Boy, put down your gear

And go back and get a pair of pliers

And bring them over here.”

Sergeant Major Gilmore Davis!

In his Gilmore Davis way

Has a face like “Jesus Save Us!”

But a smile like Sugar Ray.

Last days in Army service

He’s been in since ’44.

And you’ll think he might be nervous

With all the shit he did endure.

World War Two and then Korea

Three tours of Vietnam

But you have the wrong idea

He was mellow. He was calm.

He took the pliers.  Said, “Come with me.”

We went to the Rec room.

Where he adjusted the TV

Until Nat King Cole began to croon.

“Stay here, boy” he said to me.

But he didn’t mean it meanly.

“After Andy Williams.

We’ll watch “I Dream of Jeannie.”

I went out into the Fort Hood night

With my gear upon my shoulder.

Humming “Mama, It’s Alright”

I had a chance of getting older.

I was there near the Second Armor

And the First Cavalry

A screw-up in a lost brigade

In a Lost Company.

The Cobras shivered above us.

The tanks drove down the road.

And left us alone. God loved us.

Just like he loved Tom Joad.

I got assigned to language school

To that strange faculty

Or draftees, drunks and derelicts

Teaching deportees:

Wives brought back to the USA

From Korea and Vietnam

From little villes and long lost hills

From  Seoul and from Saigon.

So they could work in restaurants

Or dance in topless clubs

And smoke opium in trailers

And give those fine “back rubs.”

One day Captain Thomas

Came looking for his wife.

Where’s that gook bitch?  I’ll kill her!

The he took his life.

And she got al of his insurance.

She had quite a business sense.

And opened up a pawnshop

With Sergeant Gilkey, hence

Her marriage to the Sergeant

Which followed hard upon

The orders Sergeant Gilkey

Got to go to Vietnam.

And when he was listed missing

And then he turned up dead.

She said “I was always lucky lucky.”

And then was quickly wed

To the guy across the street

Who had the Army Surplus store.

If you don’t find that just and meet

It what this country’s for.

She was in my English class

Before these sad events.

It was time for her to give a speech

And she seemed somewhat tense.

“I was at the movie.

On Tet.  We in Saigon.

Big noise.  Scream everywhere.

Go up a big bomb.

Kill everyone.  My mother!

My mother, my sister died.”

She looked at me and then sat down

And never never cried.

And I remember young John Kostovich.

He was from Chicago.

He had a Ford Econo--Hippie van

With the usual strange cargo.

On one side was the Peace Sign.

On the other side a frog

And underneath that was the line

”Onward through the Fog!”

He drove that van to Mexico

And came back with some grass.

He told me “Joe, I wanted to just go.

They all can kiss my ass.”

And I remember him a year from then.

On the phone.  I heard him scream.

“My brother got killed in Fucking “Nam.”

It all seems like a dream.

He ran right out.  Got in the van.

Screaming all the way.

Jim Linden said to me

“Do you think he’ll be ok?”

He got a “compassionate discharge.”

And then in 71.

I got a letter.  “I’m living large.

Up here in Oregon.”

The real war was still going on.

Then Sergeant Davis said “You losers.

Grab your packs and get you guns.

We’re going on maneuvers.”

I was in charge of our two squads.

Prayed “God, I thee implorest.

Enlighten all the little gods

To get us lost inside the forest.”

I told my guys.  “We’ll need a lot of beer

For this goddamn fake war

And guitars and books and a lot of grass.

What are you waiting for?”

So we drove off in our Army truck

And I did not feel bereft.

Said “Damn, I can’t believe our luck.”

When they turned right then we turned left.

The real war was still going on.

The fake war did not alarm us.

I lounged outside in the Texas sun

In my Grateful Dead pajamas.

I had brought along “Ulysses.”

Joyce was always such a charmer.

But I lounged outside in that Texas breeze

Reading Philip Jose Farmer.

And that night Tom played his guitar.

Beneath the Texas moon.

So far away from the real war.

“Lay Down Your Weary Tune.”

“Lay down your weary tune, lay down,

Lay down the song you strum,

And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings

No voice can hope to hum.”

Thirty years ago and more.

Some are dead. All to me are gone so long.

What in hell was all that for?

I end this weary song.

“Lay down your weary tune, lay down,

Lay down the song you strum,

And rest yourself 'neath the strength of strings

No voice can hope to hum.”

I