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Rending the Night

Remembering My Army Service in Vietnam

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Flying bullets rend the night,
Sleeping birds in instant flight.
See the darkness glowing bright.
Sleeping soldiers wake in fright.
Targets outlined on the screen,
Infrared shows moving green,
Men in motion flee the scene,
Bombs devour those unseen,
Blasting mortars, bursting shells
Deafening, this living hell.
Bodies crisp where they just fell.
Phosphor burning, shrapnel pelts.

Eerie quiet now we hear.
No more laughter, no more tears.
Burnt to ashes, char, and sear.
Threat removed, none left to fear.
Lived to fight another day.
“Send them all to hell,” I pray.
Must not tarry. Must not stay.
Everything will be okay.

.

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LTC Roy E. Peterson, US Army Military Intelligence and Russian Foreign Area Officer (Retired) has published more than 5,000 poems in 78 of his 101 books. He has been an Army Attaché in Moscow, Commander of INF Portal Monitoring in Votkinsk, first US Foreign Commercial Officer in Vladivostok, Russia and Regional Manager in the Russian Far East for IBM. He holds a BA, Hardin-Simmons University (Political Science); MA, University of Arizona (Political Science); MA, University of Southern California (Int. Relations) and MBA University of Phoenix. He taught at the University of Arizona, Western New Mexico University, University of Maryland, Travel University and the University of Phoenix.

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33 Responses

  1. James A. Tweedie

    Roy,

    A story, vivid and well told, unfolding like a scene from Apocalypse Now. A memory that I am grateful, yet humbled, not to have as my own.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Thank you, James, for you special thoughts and comments.

      Reply
  2. Brian A. Yapko

    Wow, Roy, this is an extremely powerful poem which places the reader right into the terrifying thick of battle. Your use of short, terse lines is perfect for the subject as is the increasing crescendo of rhymes which build up to the explosions of “blasting mortars, bursting shells.” In fact, your use of rhyme here creates the momentum of a runaway train. This makes it that much more powerful when we get to the prayer and a post-battle quietude where we actually suspect that nothing will ever really be okay again.

    Roy, thank you for your service to our country and the tiniest insight into what that service cost. In these disquieting times, such patriotic service means more than you can imagine.

    Reply
  3. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Your comments are greatly appreciated! I wrote about my one year in Vietnam, 1972 (the last year of the war), as a Phoenix/Phuong Hoang Adviser, which was the CIA established program for the assassination of the Viet Cong (local indigenous communist forces). The book is titled: “Fight (not flight as in the movie) of the Phoenix.” I included a series of morning briefing notes that I had to translate for the Generals at Military Region IV, the Delta, in Can Tho, with notes such as the number of children killed by the VC on the way to school in some of the villages. I also was able to include a manuscript of 20 pages I had written, classified, and was able through FOIA to get unclassified that described the underground taxation of the local South Vietnamese by the Viet Cong as an extra burden that was like the mob providing protection (i.e. not killing them). I got it from each province in the Delta. Thank you again, for your outstanding comments that mean so much to me.

    Reply
  4. Paul A. Freeman

    The short, staccato sentences and near rhymes convey the confusion and fear generated by an engagement.

    Strong and vivid.

    Thanks for the read, Roy.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Thank you, Paul, for your understanding of how it was written.

      Reply
  5. Joseph S. Salemi

    The Phoenix counter-terrorism program was one of the few things that the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong were really frightened of. Until moralizing left-liberals in our government forced the shutdown of the program in 1972, Phoenix had decimated the Communist hierarchy and propaganda infrastructure in many provinces.

    As the Israelis are proving today, you don’t fight terrorism with diplomacy and UN resolutions.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Dr. Salemi, you are so right! As the last operational Phoenix advisor in the Delta, I advised my senior counterpart for the entire Delta what else we needed to do: My Advisory Changes and Approaches:

      1. Personal Face-to-Face Only Orders: Nothing by phone. No written orders. I told him to go to each province to brief them and then for them to brief the village security forces only by mouth. I did not trust even my own communications devices.
      2. Mobile Nighttime Patrols: Change times of patrol and areas patrolled.
      3. A rest All After Nightfall: Anyone found out of a village must be arrested.
      4. Incarcerate Any Suspects and hold all of them for x months.
      5. Interrogate all Suspects.
      6. Move the Ambush Points: The VC had come to know where regular ambushes occurred.
      7. Cross the Border: Do not worry about sending patrols and preparing ambush points in Cambodia.

      One day I was called by Colonel Kelleher from Saigon. He asked, “What are you doing down there? (The Delta was the Southern Region) I responded, I will only tell you in person. I was ordered to fly to Saigon the next day. He told me whatever I had done, the infiltration of a North Vietnamese division from Cambodia had been destroyed and that 4,000 were reported killed. I briefed him and the CIA Station Chief on my measures. There were reports of fighting in the Delta ten years later.

      Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      I also should explain, I believe the elimination and almost complete shutdown of the Commo-liaison VC, who were guides that guided the infiltrating enemy units past ambushes and guarded positions were gone and the enemy blundered into armed South Vietnamese strongpoint units.

      Reply
  6. Phil S. Rogers

    Never stationed outside the US, but a lot of my friends were in Nam and a couple KIA. Some others severely messed up. In a way, this poem to me, commemorates their service and sacrifice. A much needed reminder, thank you Roy.

    Reply
  7. James Sale

    The fact that you were involved in this dreadful war, and so fully, Roy, gives this all an Homeric, epic quality – Wilfred Owen’s expression, ‘the pity of war’ springs to mind as well. I admire your courage, your dedication and commitment, and I pray that were I too ever to be involved in such a calamity, then I would have your fortitude. The politicians move on, but the soldiers live with it forever.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      James, I am touched by your wonderful comments. From your own poetry, I know you would have the fortitude. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

      Reply
  8. James A. Tweedie

    This is a side comment not intended to distract from the poem (although it might). I am interested in the banner photograph by John Alfred Ford? It is striking and captivating. But . . . the soldier is seen as cautious, anxious, as he extends his hand to steady himself as he peeks around the corner of a building. The impression is that he his seeking out the enemy in a combat situation. My question concerns the position of the photographer, who appears to be in the open looking back at the anxiously peering soldier. That leads me to consider the possibility that the photograph was staged. Am I wrong to raise this doubt? If so, why? Just wondering. I have researched his photos and noticed a number of similar shots where he is (for example) positioned in front of a soldier supposedly on patrol crawling through the jungle. Even if posed, they show real soldiers in their war-zone settings.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      James, you are so correct! I sent a photo of my book cover, “Fight of the Phoenix” that can be viewed on Amazon.com. I recommend viewing that, since it showed the Phoenix bird. I also sent the photo from which it was made. Sometimes photos sent are not used for several reasons such as copyright issues, sizing differential, or simply not sent with the final approval.

      Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      James, I have another idea. If you go to About Members and then click on Official Members, you can click on my name. My photo in Vietnam is on the second page part way down. I should have attached this one to the poem when I sent it.

      Reply
    • Evan Mantyk

      Jim,
      The image came from wikimedia commons. It may be staged. The photographer could also being shooting from far away and is safely situated, using a lens to zoom in… as a photographer, you would know better. At any rate, here is the full caption:

      English: South Vietnam. May 1971. Private (Pte) Greg Davison of Yarrawonga, Vic, inching his way forward through the jungle during a reconnaissance patrol in Phuoc Tuy Province. Together with other members of C Company, 2RAR /NZ (ANZAC) (The ANZAC Battalion comprising 2nd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment and a component from the 1st Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment), Pte Davison was taking part in his final operation in the war zone. The battalion will leave South Vietnam later this month after completing a twelve month tour of duty.

      https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2RAR.NZ_soldier_moves_forward_on_reconnaissance_patrol,_May_1971.jpg

      This was the best image that I could find that captured a bit of the jungle tension of Vietnam, so vividly brought to life in Roy’s poem.

      Reply
      • James A. Tweedie

        Evan, I wasn’t criticizing the choice of the photo. It was a perfect illustration for Roy’s poem. I simply raised the question of staging, something I have observed accompanying stories in both war and peace-time media, including Newsweek (which is why I dropped my subscription years ago), Time, and via AP, UPI, Al Jazeera, and other news outlets, particularly when reporting on the Middle East. War photographs have often been posed (see Mathew Brady), as was this iconic WW2 picture of an American soldier (taken in Panama by war photographer Dickey Chapelle https://onlineresize.club/2021-club.html). According to his anzacportal.com bio, John Alfred Ford served “as a (civilian) public relations (PR) photographer in the Vietnam War.” His photographs were taken with that PR task in mind. Note that I am not suggesting that he wasn’t present on actual patrols or did not find his life in danger in the same manner as did photographer Robert Capa and journalist Ernie Pyle who was killed when he poked his head out of his foxhole during the invasion of Okinawa.

  9. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Roy, this poem has a vivid immediacy about it that put this reader right in the middle of the horrors of war. It sent chills – this scene in particular “Bodies crisp where they just fell. / Phosphor burning, shrapnel pelts.” – it puts me in mind of Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est”. Roy, thank you.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Great comments with many thanks for sharing those thoughts. Bless you.

      Reply
  10. Margaret Coats

    Short and somber, this one. As you may remember, Roy, I served with many men completing enlistments after combat duty in Vietnam. They rarely expressed the kind of feelings you’ve put into this little piece, but the memories were there, along with the relief at “threat removed.” While a very few would have sent Vietnam and the US along with it to hell, I can also recall strong camaraderie for one another, and often enough, genuine fellow feeling for unfortunate Vietnamese civilians. They could see how merciless Viet Cong were, as you touch on above in reply to Brian Yapko. Individual Americans would do their best at least not to cause more harm or grief than a tough situation required. And I can say many, many Vietnamese Americans I know are ever grateful.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      The VC performed countless unspeakable atrocities on the South Vietnamese civilians such as burning villages and villagers that did not cooperate, assassinating leadership in villages they overran, and killing children on the way to school. I was a constant witness to that as the translator into English for the morning briefings at MR IV (Delta) Headquarters. I had a lot of these notes copied into my book by scanning from my small sheets of paper where I wrote them down. Thank you for serving and mentioning your service. There is a lot to the concept, “band-of-brothers” that should have included sisters.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        To confirm LTC Peterson’s above comment, let it be added that during the Tet offensive of 1968, when the VC took control of the city of Hue, they carried out savage extra-judicial executions of thousands of civil servants, schoolteachers, businessmen, religious leaders, captured South Vietnamese soldiers, and anyone else deemed unsympathetic to Communism.

        The U.S. Army photos of the mass graves that held the corpses of these victims were appalling. And the only major publication the United States that actually published them was National Review, at that time a conservative magazine. Every other newspaper and magazine ignored them, since they did not fit in with the pro-leftist antiwar narrative that the bulk of our “journalists” were pushing.

        The leftist control of Mainstream Media was just starting back then. Now it is total and unquestioned.

      • Roy Eugene Peterson

        Perfect comment, Dr. Salemi! I lost friends at Hue. The world needs to read and understand exactly what you described so ably. I greatly appreciate your supportive comments!

  11. Gigi Ryan

    Dear Roy,
    This gives me the tiniest taste of terror that you you felt then and many others feel on a daily basis. To convey the horrors in this beautiful poem is to give a glimpse into the suffering of those who serve and have served in the military. Thank you for serving and thank you for writing seem to be trite expressions, but they are heartfelt.
    Gigi

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Thank you, Gigi, for your precious comments. I was always calm even under fire and I attributed that to God watching over me and controlling my emotions. I was shot at by riverboat, in a helicopter in broad daylight, and by land including driving the Delta in a Japanese made Army Jeep that more resembled a Jeep Wagoneer, since it had a metal top. For some reason I never felt fear but saw it in others. What I did feel was anger at the VC.

      Reply
  12. Shamik Banerjee

    Firstly, thank you for your service, Mr. Peterson. This poem is an intense read and seems as if it were written in one breath. I cannot imagine how terrifying this experience was for you. Each event of a crossfire, mortar droppings, and bombings must have been dreadful beyond one’s imagination. The line “lived to fight another day” hit straight into my heart. There are so many questions my mind is brimming with right now: Are your squad members still alive now? Are you in touch with them? How does war change a person? and many more, but I’ll stop here. Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Keep well. God bless.

    Reply
  13. Roy Eugene Peterson

    I had the privilege of being deferred to work on my doctor’s degree and was promoted to 1st Lieutenant before active duty. I was selected by the Army Chief of Staff for Intelligence for duty with a secret organization and was promoted to Captain in one year. I was the primary author and editor of a paper that was used by the Department of Defense to establish our secret base in the Indian Ocean at Diego Garcia. Since I had access to Top Secret and codeword compartmented intelligence, I could only be assigned either to Saigon or Can Tho, HQ of Military Region IV in the Delta, which were judged the safest places for me not to be captured. As one of the last Army Officers in the Delta, I had freedom of operations in my advisory capacity. Thus, I had no squad, and almost no one else around me at the end. I may have been one of those rare individuals who felt war did not change him. I felt at home in that environment, but then I was used to being an only child. I did reestablish contact with some of them who had been in my Phoenix Class at Fort Bragg. but only briefly. My assignments after Vietnam were high level. I did have a command of over 100 men and women in Germany and later Command of Portal Monitoring at the formerly secret missile factory in Votkinsk, Soviet Union, under terms of the INF Treaty.

    Reply
  14. Jeff Eardley

    Roy, your military history makes for fascinating reading. Having just had the celebrations for D-day over here, the actual messy, violent war experience is far removed from the movie portrayals. Thank you for this first hand account of the actual memory of being there. You are a credit to your nation. Thank you.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Bless you, Jeff, for your kind comments. I remember my visits to Whitehall to coordinate intelligence. I also remember a military conference in London, when I was the Military and Security Advisor to the Army Staff. I mentioned this following story before. While in London, I spent a couple of evenings at the theaters surrounding Leicester Square. After one was over (about 9 pm), I got an ice cream cone and walked onto the square. Most of the plays had finished by this time. At the top of the square, two young guys were playing a Buddy Holly tune. I went over and said I would imitate him if they played. We agreed and I sang “That’ll Be the Day,” “Oh Boy,” and “Rave On.” I started “Peggy Sue,” but a Bobby came over and said we had to stop. I asked, “Why?” He said the crowd is getting too big and rowdy. I asked if I could finish this last one and he said, “Okay.” Then I heard “neener, neener, neerer” and twelve Bobbies arrived in a police van. I looked around. The square was full, and some had climbed up trees. I turned to the guitar players to thank them, but they had already disappeared. That was my outdoor London impromptu concert. Later I wonder what if I had been arrested when I was supposed to be there for a security conference! I was told there were about 3,000 estimated in the audience.

      Reply
  15. David Whippman

    This poem reminded me a little of how my stepdad described being in an air-to-sea battle in WW2. The noise, the fear, the terrible sights. Like James Tweedie, I am grateful that I never had to serve. Respect to those who did.

    Reply
    • Roy Eugene Peterson

      Thank you for sharing. Most of us know someone who was involved in a war.

      Reply
  16. Adam Sedia

    This is a remarkable poem. I had to read it a few times to take it all in. Thank God the closest thing to battle I ever experienced was paintball, but I imagine this rapid sequence of short, disjointed, ad hoc thoughts mimics the experience of being an action. It’s certainly made the experience come alive to me in ways I had never thought about before. I especially like the self reassurance at the ending. Those thoughts keep us going when everything around us is hell. Excellent, engaging work.

    Reply

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