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Susan Tepper was a TWA stewardess during the Vietnam War years and flew with the troops on the MAC charter flights into Vietnam. Today she is the author of seven published books of fiction and poetry. Her newest title, Monte Carlo Days & Nights, is set in the South of France and narrated by a stewardess of a later time period. www.susantepper.com.

The Vietnam/American War

Susan Tepper

I don’t know

It was a dark blot

History

A tree half

Chopped off at the knee

Some left leg

Buffalo

Cruising the paddies

The most Zen

Advantage

Comes out of all war

Billions dropped

The kill-count

Depersonalized

The horrors

Pleasure dome

Ho Chi Minh City

Was Saigon

Pretty girls

From the countryside

Spreading them

Cholera

Offed many thousands

Commerce rained

Boys drafted

Most of them poor kids

No one cared

Degraded

Each government’s role

Took its toll

Not sacred

Women and children

Blown to bits

The cradle

Civilization

Hell on Earth

Who was who

No one seemed to know

Confusion

When in doubt

Kill whatever moves

And they did

Enemy

Name for another

Did the same

O – Mercy

Looked the other way

Call it sleep

— Susan Tepper

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