Here’s a poem reflecting the memories of Bravo Company Bushmaster member in Vietnam – 3/21st Infantry, 196th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division…

By Ken Gilbert

Through tangled green where shadows creep,

The Bushmasters move, silent and deep.

Boots press low in the jungle mire,

Hearts burn hot with battle’s fire.

Foxholes dug with hurried hands,

Dirt and mud from distant lands.

Whispers pass where rifles gleam,

In the hush before the scream.

Bravo Company, standing tall,

Brothers bound to heed the call.

The 196th, through fire and rain,

Marches on through blood and pain.

Loaded rucksacks weigh them down,

Through rice paddies, through burned-out towns.

C-rations cold, the taste of steel,

On jungle hills a lonely meal.

At FSB Center, the mortars boom,

Echoes rolling through the gloom.

Napalm drops in fiery breath, 

Leaving only ash and death.

Rotors slice the humid air,

Ghosts of war come swooping there.

The Huey’s roar, a metal beast,

Brings death and life–the war’s cruel feast.

Tracer fire in neon arcs,

Tears the night with blazing sparks.

Brothers fall, some rise again,

Names etched deep in monsoon rain.

Through the years the echoes fade,

Yet memories stand where men one laid.

The Bushmaster fights, the Bushmaster dreams,

Forever bound to jungle streams.

*****

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