Door Gunner
The year was nineteen hundred and sixty-eight
And I didn’t want to be left behind or too late.
It was my generation’s world stage show
And I desperately wanted to sign up and to go.
But the army had tricked me and played a cruel joke,
Spiraling my war-movie dreams up in black smoke.
For three years they stationed me in West Germany,
Not the place I had imagined I wanted to be,
For I was a Hell’s Kitchen street-fightin’ villain
And yearned to be close to the action and killin’.
I served my time in Europe and went back to my home;
Took a job at Grumman and became a factory drone.
While I was working, the war over in Vietnam
Continued to rage on, rage on, rage on and on.
One day I walked up and told my ole boss,
“See ya later; I just joined the U.S. Air Force.”
This time I had made extra damn good and sure
That Vietnam-bound would be on my front door.
I said I’d be a gunner on a helicopter ship.
I wanted airborne battle, the ultimate far-out trip.
They were more than obliging, taught me how to fly
And sent me someplace where I could be a gung-ho dead guy.
Finally, I had arrived at the Pacific’s combat side
In the gunship New Yorker I would fight and ride.
We soared way above green canopy tops,
The American Air Force’s deadliest cops.
From far up above in the Southeast Asian sky,
We made our enemy run for cover, get blasted, or die.
The bullets and rockets at which our craft did excel
Turned highland skirmish fields into a tropical hell.
But at night when the chopper blades stopped rotating and spinning,
We would talk about reasons why it seemed we were not winning.
It was impossible to understand how this ever could be
When there were so many bad-asses there just like me.
So to stop all of this useless and negative thinking,
We dulled our emotions with plenty of drinking.
There was never a shortage of Johnny Walker Black Label or Red
Nor of Vietnamese soldiers or American dead.
One thing that in ’Nam it took no trouble to find
Was a source of drugs for numbing the mind.
And I didn’t want to be left behind or too late.
It was my generation’s world stage show
And I desperately wanted to sign up and to go.
But the army had tricked me and played a cruel joke,
Spiraling my war-movie dreams up in black smoke.
For three years they stationed me in West Germany,
Not the place I had imagined I wanted to be,
For I was a Hell’s Kitchen street-fightin’ villain
And yearned to be close to the action and killin’.
I served my time in Europe and went back to my home;
Took a job at Grumman and became a factory drone.
While I was working, the war over in Vietnam
Continued to rage on, rage on, rage on and on.
One day I walked up and told my ole boss,
“See ya later; I just joined the U.S. Air Force.”
This time I had made extra damn good and sure
That Vietnam-bound would be on my front door.
I said I’d be a gunner on a helicopter ship.
I wanted airborne battle, the ultimate far-out trip.
They were more than obliging, taught me how to fly
And sent me someplace where I could be a gung-ho dead guy.
Finally, I had arrived at the Pacific’s combat side
In the gunship New Yorker I would fight and ride.
We soared way above green canopy tops,
The American Air Force’s deadliest cops.
From far up above in the Southeast Asian sky,
We made our enemy run for cover, get blasted, or die.
The bullets and rockets at which our craft did excel
Turned highland skirmish fields into a tropical hell.
But at night when the chopper blades stopped rotating and spinning,
We would talk about reasons why it seemed we were not winning.
It was impossible to understand how this ever could be
When there were so many bad-asses there just like me.
So to stop all of this useless and negative thinking,
We dulled our emotions with plenty of drinking.
There was never a shortage of Johnny Walker Black Label or Red
Nor of Vietnamese soldiers or American dead.
One thing that in ’Nam it took no trouble to find
Was a source of drugs for numbing the mind.
A tribute to John Thorburn, Sergeant, USAF Retired
© 2007 by Michael Domino