Private Jackson, USMC
by:Enrique del Rosario
© Copyright 2001

Private Jackson was written while I was in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam in 1968, listening to the armed forces radio reports on "scattered action in the I Corps area". I picked up a copy of Pacific Stars and Stripes newspaper and read the names of the weeks' casualties, when I came across the name of a Private Jackson, USMC, killed in action. I wondered if it was someone I had gone to boot camp with...but probably not...but still I could not help but think of who he was.

private g. jackson, usmc, kia
Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam, 1968

foxtrot company was pinned down

the score stood at 8 to 2 (ap saigon

...the u.s. military assistance command

spokesman reports scattered action...)

not much sense in praying now

most of us are too scared for that

sgt loudmouth tells me to move up move

your ass goddam goddamit

but by god where the hell am i

gonna move my ass to but on top of charlie

i didn't want to see it but jackson's

chest just exploded in red

and he just crumpled like some mammy

doll whose stuffing got blown to shit

capt braveguy (of beaumont, texas

s m u class '64, varsity football, etc, etc) went

scrambling over to see if he was dead

not quite (got to wait to write the letter)

but anyway you did fine jackson

ah'm proud of you boy jackson's

mouth just gushed out red and he gasped

his last halfword...mother-...