Rhymes of an Ordnance Man
[Vietnam War: 1971]

An eleven part poem
By Dennis L. Siluk

I had went to Vietnam at the age of 23 [1971], and it was most interesting, there were 205,000 troops there when I arrived. I was asked recently at a lecture [question and answer] at a University in Peru, Huancayo, at the Los Andes, Language Center, how I liked it. Most of the students expected me to be down right rigid with my remarks, I think. But the first thing that came to mind was, '...war is a high," and so I expressed that to the students, they were a ting surprised. And so in this poem I try to outline a few of the more normal occurrences, and include the highs one may find in everyday soldiering in a war area:

Part One

Vietnam: Guard Duty at Dusk