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Johnny Got His Gun |
johnny was a hot head
in country for nine days
the pride of basic training
and america’s ‘finest’
“make us proud son” just
itchin’ for some action
“gonna get me some gooks”
his unit walked into an ambush
“victor charley, victor charley!”
johnny took rounds unknown
once while crouching
another as he dove for cover
more as he lay on the jungle floor
screaming his guts out
while the battle roared around him
“finish the job, finish the job!”
he thought he would die there
but modern warfare cleans up well
and he was laying on the table of a hospital ship
before he knew it
a nurse explained to him later that
he was going home because they couldn’t
extract all the bits of shrapnel
johnny left the army with a morphine habit
and a handful of twisted metal
his broken body healing slowly
his broken mind never quite making it back
every couple of years
he’d be back at the va hospital in westwood
getting another piece of shrapnel
extracted
his ‘metals of valor’ he called ‘em
kept the pieces in a jar in the garage
told me how sometimes at night
he’d wake in a sweat
frozen on the bed
the roar of battle again in his ears
until he realized it was only traffic
that the body laying motionless next to him
was only his girlfriend
but the terror lingered
like the faint smell of rot
the last time i saw johnny
he told me how the shrapnel in that jar
had begun to talk to him
how he’d begun to spend long hours
in the garage staring at his 'trophies'
he told me he’d bought a gun
(much to his girlfriend’s dismay)
a small pistol with enough power to
‘get the job done’ and he gave me a look
so’s i would know what he meant
and i did
‘cause i knew that at night
even when the nightsweats weren’t working
their magic on him
johnny would hear that tiny chorus
buzzing in his left ear
and it would only be a matter of time
before he’d have to obey
that order he’d heard himself screaming
that afternoon in nam
“finish the job! finish the job!”
copyright 2004
Raindog |
