I invite you to visit my, “Vietnam Picture tour,” from the lens and poet's pen of a combat infantryman: http://PZZZZ.tripod.com/namtour.html Take a walk through "the park" with the 1st Air Cavalry on combat patrol.

Photo tour of Vietnamese people: http://pzzzz.tripod.com/viet.html

I served with B Company 2nd/7th 1st Air Cavalry '66 - '67, as a combat infantryman operating out of LZ Betty near Phan thiet in Vietnam's Central Highlands. My goal in writing today is to educate people who have no idea of the realities and atrocities of war...with the desire to promote peace. I wish the horror stories of what happened there to never die. I want them to live on in the telling and retelling...rubbing people's faces in the horror vested on a generation, until they become a firmly established part of our memory...so that we may understand this should never happen again.

I am a Vietnam poet, working in multi- media with the Internet, using colorful backgrounds, and haunting music that many veterans say reveal the anguished smell and textures and feel of war in Vietnam.

I was the sports editor of my college daily newspaper (BYU's Daily Universe) when I was drafted...and like so many others, Nam changed the direction of my life indelibly and forever. Nam imbedded my soul with a new set of senses...forever.

Many veterans have written me saying that for the first time in 33 years they read exactly what they felt, and for the first time they were able to sit down in front of the computer with their families and show them what war was like for them. School teachers have written me saying they think my "tour," should be required viewing for their students.

I wrote this poetry because all the people of the world continually need to understand how important an event war is. War will always be a determining factor of not only who we are, but will determine our very futures, as well as the futures of our wives and children. I sincerely hope we will not doom our children to fight senseless battles as did we, shackling them to similar fates suffered by their fathers in the latest in a series of "war-to-end-all-wars!" If we do not learn the history of war, learning there is no glory in war...only death, destruction of values and misery, then we are doomed to repeat it!

And the next war will inexorably come!

Sometimes war is a necessary evil...sometimes not...sometimes there's Vietnam! My fervent wish is that there be peace evermore, and war-no- more!

Vietnam combat vets have a lot of baggage they need to contend with, depending on how much blood they got on their hands...and how much of it was their enemies, their buddies, or their own. Combat Veterans of the Nam may or may not have been wounded physically, but have deep emotional, ethical and psychological scars. Most were just young boys who were like I was, gung-ho naive. We patriotically answered our countries call, and were made to kill and suffer killing, ravaged with the aftermath of learning hatreds and fearing, the skills of killing, Agent Orange and ptsd effecting many "boys next door" with life threatening maladies that still are a vital part of our lives today. I also have been exposed, numerous times, to that chemical miracle wonder that causes birth defects, cancers, diabetes, liver, heart and kidney problems....

There needs to be understanding, love and healing. Our nation must learn there is a better way to solve disputes. These are but some of my poems...I ask you to please read them before you judge:

"A Combat Soldiers Prayer," http://PZZZZ.tripod.com/prayer.html

"My Thousand Yard Stare," http://pzzzz.tripod.com/stare.html

“I Felt I’d Died,” http://Knights_Lance.tripod.com/vietnamwarpoems.html

“Soldiers Of The Wall,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/wall.html

“A Soldier’s Seven guardian Angels,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/sevenangels.html

"A Soldier’s Legacy," http://PZZZZ.tripod.com/warrior.html

“Papason,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/papason.html

“Just Before The Battle Mother,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/battlemother.html

“i’m no hero,” http://pzzzz.tripod.com/hero.html

-- Gary Jacobson (pgriz@hotmail.com), December 12, 2000

Answers

This is probably the very best private web site I have ever visited, but it seems misplaced on this Forum. My feelings range from "My God, they were so young and so thin," to "I liked Forrest Gump a lot better." Wonder where he got the music -- I could listen to "The House of the Rising Sun" all day.

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), December 12, 2000.

MR JACOBSON. I AM A 32 YR. OLD DAUGHTER OF A VIETNAM VETERAN. AS I WENT TRU YOUR WEBSITE MY THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS FOR MY DADDYS PAIN AND SUFFERING AS WELL AS ALL VETS BECAME OVERWHELMING. IVE HEARD SOME STORIES THROUGHOIUT MY LIFE FROM MY DADDY OF VIETNAM,THINGS THAT HAPPENED TO THERE HAS PROFOUNDLY EFECTED HIS LIFE {IM SURE YOU CAN RELATE}. ALTHOUGH YOU THAT FOUGHT IN THE VIETNAM WAR MIGHT HAVE BEEN SPIT UPON AFTER RETURNING HOME AND TREATED LIKE OUTSIDERS,IT INFURIATES ME; THIS WAR FOR MANY YEARS, HAS RULED VETS VERY EXISTENCE. ITS A SHAME THE WAY VETS HAVE BEEN TREATED.SOLDIERS THAT FOUGHT AND DIED FOR OUR COUNTRY THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN HONORED FOR THE REST OF THEIR DAYS. I ADMIRE YOU FOR SHARING YOUR EXPERIENCE WITH THE WORLD AS WE NEED TO KNOW THE DEPTH OF YA'LLS PAIN, MAYBE TO HELP US BETTER UNDERSTAND. MY DADDY HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF MY LIFE. "HE IS MY HERO" MY SALUTE TO YOU, SIR FOR YOUR COURAGE IT IS AN HONOR MR JACOBSON. MECHELE BASS P.O. BOX 112 ELMER, LA. 71424

-- MECHELE BASS (mechele@Ii-u.net), March 25, 2001.

Mechele:

Your kind sentiments are well appreciated by Gary Jacobsen, I'm sure but why SHOUT?

Just for your information, typing in capitals on the internet, and in e-mails is considered to be akin to shouting and is very rude... No offense ;-)

FWIW, I wonder if the practice goes back to telegraphic messages, which were always transmitted without case, and for those old enough to remember, were typed out in capitals on a paper tape...

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), March 26, 2001.

Gary, and my apologies for misspelling your last name in the above post :-(

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), March 26, 2001.