Vietnam Story

The Big Silver Bird brought them,

Young and brave, and strong

To face their enduring enemy

An undefeated Viet Cong.

To the jungles of Vietnam,

To face a combat's hell,

Announced and betrayed 

By their own sanitised smell.

After Shave and deodorant

Wafting through the jungle air

Alerting guerrilla fighters 

Waiting in ambush there.

In this alien territory no chance:

Choppers tanks and guns

Not much use with an enemy

That quickly hits and runs.

So in time,

Like the French before,

They came to accept

This was a futile war.

Boots on the ground

Troops in the field

All to no avail against

An enemy not prepared yield.

All the heroism and bravery

All the modern military might

All spent and wasted 

In a corrupt regime’s fight.

The enemy advanced

The retreat becoming rout

As that twentieth century force

Very quickly pulled out

Agent Orange left its traces.

Still to this very day

There are minefields where

Young children are at play.

The Veterans and their families,

The bereaved of those lost

The damaged and disabled

To this day bear that awful cost

The innocent always suffer

In the aftermath of war

The Nation's leader shrugs 

And carries on as before.

In that land where lives were lost

And many a hero made.

The Big Silver Birds now

Bring a growing tourist trade.