Larry Sirmons burned
my boot-camp top-rack “bunkie”
Mister MilScience*
the DIs called this Black kid
from Washington, D.C.
*(MilScience – how to make Military Science fit in a haiku format.)
Larry Sirmons burned
my boot-camp top-rack “bunkie”
Mister MilScience*
the DIs called this Black kid
from Washington, D.C.
*(MilScience – how to make Military Science fit in a haiku format.)
(May 28, 2021)
we maybe said five
whole words weekly – that’s a lot
for Marine boot camp
DIs rode him with caustic
comments for most of our stay
(May 28, 2021)
DI’s never “touched”
Larry: they got me week one
at the rifle range
his pic in ‘toon book fooled me:
he was ‘That Black?’ I exclaimed!
(May 28, 2021)
smooth, quiet, cultured
voice just above a whisper
he marched perfectly
yet the DIs rode him hard
mocking his confident air
(May 28, 20210)
boot camp came easy
to Larry Sirmons – rolled off
like lone duck he was
he was out ‘toon’s only “Unk”
and still it shook him not
(May 28, 2021)
we were mid-squad mates
fourth squad – the anchor at march
I just followed him
Larry dug his heels just right
and did ‘obliques’ so smoothly
(May 28, 2021)
we left our cocoon
november twenty-two
he was infantry
I was “REMF” rear puke
destined though to play with grunts
*(REMF – rear echelon mother-fucker; also, Remington Raider)
why I kept Larry
in my random thoughts two years
unknown, yet plasant
then one day at Freedom Hill
there he was gleaming smile-wide
(May 25, 2021)
DaNang’s Marine store
now, Blacks and Whites in ‘the nam”
did not by choice sit
at least in those fractured times
yet none bothered these two buds
(May 28) 2021
Was on second-tour,
I a white-scuffed boots six-month
by-now skinny vet
bush beasts grin a certain way;
he was Force Recon: me – awed!