The Green Beret

By
Don Bendell

My hair was long, with one blonde stripe,
The surfer's streak . . . my father griped.
I'd listen to the Beach Boys sing,
And thought that I was "everything."

My sandals laced up to my knees,
With cut-off cords, no BVD's.
I was a hippie, and a bum,
And joined the Army to have fun.

They changed my mind with morning runs,
Grenades, and push-ups, bombs, and guns.
They shaved my head and made me hurt,
And more than once, I ate some dirt.

In OCS, they said, "Now quit!"
But I said, "I will finish it!"
Then came the day and that gold bar,
Then jump wings and my brand new car.

And soon, I won my green beret,
Then left to fight so far away.
In Vietnam, I fought with pride.
My cousin fled up north to hide.

POW's beat and caged,
While back at home the peaceniks raged.
Jane Fonda made me yell and scream,
When friends died who were on my team.

That war was fought by blacks and whites,
While Johnson fought for civil rights.
I was a drunk, a doper, too,
But I got sober in that zoo.

Then I got sick, was almost dead,
The war still raging in my head.
They shipped me home; and told me, "Stay!"
Then I could only grieve and pray.

We won the battles, lost the war,
And I felt like a used-up whore.
I gave my all, my heart, my soul.
The passion really took its toll.

And then I tried civilian life,
Three kids, a house, and my first wife.
I didn't like neighbors, jobs, or stress,
And made my life a stupid mess.

I've raised myself: God helped me grow,
Since I left that war so long ago.
I've had some laughter, shed some tears,
A wife I've loved for twenty years.

My innocence gone and life now changed,
Some folks still think that I am strange.
That war defined us, that's for sure.
It really made me more mature.

I have a code of honor still
And pray I'll never have to kill,
But know that I will never run . . .
I'm not that boy who was a bum.

During the decade and a half that the United States military was involved in the war in Vietnam, some two and a half million American men and women served in country (within the geographical area of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, the surrounding waters, or in the skies over this region). The bulk of these were conventional soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines not at all unlike their fathers who fought in World War II. Only a very small minority of the American combat force was the elite men of the Army Special Forces.

Despite their diminutive size in proportion to the overall American presence, the men of the Green Berets earned 17 Medals of Honor, more than 10% of the 160 total awards to members of the U.S. Army and nearly 7% of the overall total of 246 awards. Eleven of those seventeen heroes did not survive their moment of valor to ever wear the award.

A further glance at those seventeen awards reveals another notable statistic. Three of these Special Forces heroes were ethnic minorities and a fourth was a foreign-born Hungarian. In the Army Special Forces the playing field was level for every volunteer. A man either made it, or washed out, based solely upon his ability to do the job.

Even while a revolution for civil rights was brewing at home, on the battlefields of Vietnam the young soldiers who traveled to foreign shores to free the oppressed had already learned and proven, what had yet to be understood in American society.

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