For Captain Richard W. Chowning, USAF who
served at Phang Rang AFB, Vietnam in 1968

We have decided war is
inevitable. Past devastation
is recalled with rose-colored
glasses. Aged warriors, once
invincible, today play bingo, 
drink warm beer, and wait for
welfare checks.

The dead and gone are lauded 
annually at appropriate holidays
with flags and speeches by two-
bit politicos.

When he flew that F-100 fighter 
in Vietnam, elephants died from 
his bombs. Against a cerulean sky
those noble beasts, stumbled, fell,
died.

He never signed up at twenty-four
as a wanton killer of innocent creatures,
telling me in frequent letters of his despair
and frustration.

This unpopular war made our soldiers pariahs,
booed and spit on by ungrateful citizens. “Thank
you for your service,” was a platitude undreamed of 
in those turbulent years.

Vietnam recovered her soul, became prosperous 
and modernized, but those flying fighters remember
only futility, and the women who waited wearing 
copper POW bracelets, tying ribbons on old oak trees.