Not Forgetting Viet Nam: ‘Song Be’ near Cambodia: May Shells and Soldiers Rest in Peace

Posted by DR. CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTÉS, Managing Editor of TMV, and Columnist
May 19th, 2012 

I collect and look at black and white photos, garage sale cast offs, collections of oddities of our world that someone chose to immortalize in what used to be called ‘film.’

This is a photo of two men piling spent howitzer shells at a sandbagged gun emplacement at Song Be. On the back of the photo is writ: Song Be, less than a hundred miles from Siagon, near the Cambodian border… US 1st infantry.

What is not written is these gunners on the ground who have direct contact with gunfire, inhabit one of the most dangerous places in war: infantry, on the ground, without wings…. other than their own angels.

I’ve a dear cousin who went to Nam, a Marine. He came back. But he wasnt able to carry all of his young self back. Part of him still lies on the ground, dead, with the rest of his squadron, from near 40 years ago.

I’ve been a military wife for 21 years. My hubby, 21 years USAF (ret.) and working now at VA helping old soldiers and young soldiers with prostheses. Once you have a prosthesis, whether for hearing or for a limb, the fittings and refittings go on for life.

I’ve worked in post trauma recovery with vets returned from war since 1965 when I began at Hines VA, with an entire ward of brave Italiano boys who were reeling from two things; abandonment by sweethearts and wives– and loss of two or more limbs in war. Not one, two or more limbs.

Had I been able, I would have gathered them all up and taken them home with me forever. Brave beyond brave to endure, they all were, each in his own way. In my care, I could see in their hearts they still were wanting to walk the perimeters in life for all vulnerable others. They didnt want to come home with me to be taken care of. They wanted to come home with me to watch over me. Still, even though so deeply injured.

They were souls who loved children, a pretty woman, a loyal friend. And they poured their stories of mayhem and monsters in war out where we both could hold those images and see and validate the reality, mend the burned eyes of their images, help mend the ears of their unbearable sounds…. and move slowly forward on the way back to the true home of the heart broken open.

I’ve been a poet, a painter, and a woman all my life. When I look at these old black and whites of war, I see several things: the intense beauty of the young males who here in all their muscles and grace could often as easily be in a ballet as they move and arc and leap, as on a battlefield. But there the similarity ends. Ballet and battlefield both begin with B. But then, so does Blood.

Every time I look at these old pictures of men and women in war, civilians and forces, I often put my hand over the image, and pray different prayers over each: This is one…

I so dearly hope you came home.
I hope you are now in your 60s and 70s,
fat and happy, eating bar-b-que,
enjoying your fishing, your buddies,
your grandchildren, the sunrise and the stars …
that you can still see beauty through your stars and scars.
And for those who did not make it home,
from any and all– I say
as long as I and others.
who know your stories up close,
remain alive,
your young years on earth
will never be forgotten.
[Some say such is sentiment,
foolish, and soft in the head.
I say it is a requirement,
to thank the young and the dead.]

CODA
Different soldiers remind me of siblings all in the same family. They often, at the same engagement/gathering, have different stories to tell, each from their own vantage point, each from their own heart. I hope we ever will listen. It is never too late to listen to any and all sides, never too late to listen to the living… and to the stories of the dead told by the living.

If you have black and white pictures to share of Viet Nam from any side, during the 1960s and 1970s: projectscreener@aol.com I’ll be glad to hear from you.

dr. clarissa pinkola estés
certified psychoanalyst, post-trauma recovery specialist, author, teacher of writing.