After nearly half a century, our veteran's of the Viet Nam War are still in the throes of coming to terms with their experiences from that war. Witness their annual converging onto Washinton, D.C., by motorcycle, from every state in our union. Every first ten days in May, bikecades of over quarter of a million strong, make their "Run for the Wall" to visit the monument erected to the veterans of that war. Since our debut NetNews issue of January 5th, we have gotten a number of responses from those veteran writers asking to be heard. Outstanding among my E-Mails was John Mowatt's poetry, three poems in all, one of which is published in this issue. The balance will follow in subsequent issues up until May's "Run for the Wall".

About the Author:
John Mowatt was drafted into the Army in February of 1970. By December of 1971, he was in Vietnam as a sargent in charge of two squads of men on Dusters (twin 40s AWSP) and Quad 50 Machine Gun Trucks. His tour in the Army lasted one year ten months and eleven days. But like most Vietnam Vets, his tour in Vietnam never truly ended. His writings reflect his every day feelings of that experience; they stay with him as his constant companion. The vehicles that allow him to deal with those feelings are his poems.

Faces

The black plastic stock against my cheek
Reminds me of the Mattel's Thompson machine gun of my youth
Playing war with the neighborhood kids
Playing hide and seek

Ten years later I'm popping caps
Colt's version of Mattel; the M-16
But this war is no game to play
The dead stay dead they don't return to play another day

I make it easy by pretending to be hunting deer
Home in the woods of Northeast Pa
For deer have no faces
They have no names

The months have past I'm home at last
The opening day of deer hunting has just past
The trophy is in my sights; the slow exhale of breath
The ever gentle squeeze of trigger

The stag buck raises his head and shows off the rack
  I hesitate - pull back the bolt and let the unspent round
     fall
      to the ground I shall never hunt again for the deer now
     have faces They now have names

Quad 50 1997
(j. mowatt)

EDITOR'S NOTE:
All comments on j. mowatt's poetry are welcomed. We will forward them to him as well as publish them. Please direct your email to the Editor.