The Misfortune Teller ("Surplus Sand Pebble")

I was a Surplus Sand Pebble in Vietnam,
sent up a river, there to bide my time,
deep in the Mekong Delta for our Uncle Sam,
performing my pathetic pantomime.
Advisor and translator, or just Go-fer Guy,
whatever needed doing, that I did.
I hoped, like all my shipmates, that I wouldn't die.
So, when the shooting started, I just hid.
Except at "battle stations," me, a common swab
(with sandbag bunker serving as my shield)
stood "resolute," appearing with a ragged mob
"defending" a defoliated field.
Our moustaches and beards helped to identify
the "sacred" cause that long ago had gone awry.

Richard McKenna wrote the novel which I read
in Basic Training, nineteen sixty-six
from August through October. Yet what lay ahead
did not seem to concern me. Stones and Sticks
were not my strong point, nor the U. S. Navy's. So,
I put aside the book for many years.
I've since re-read The Sand Pebbles and now I know:
how far my understanding's in arrears.
At some point, looking back on life I realize
how much the story seemed like my tale, too.
Also my country's. Why then do few people prize
the fact that Vietnam was China II.
Brown-water U.S. Navies in an Asian land
have got no future larger than a grain of sand.