Ain’t heavy

68-69 time frame.

Average age: 21.

3/4 in support role i.e. in Long Binh, Cam Ranh Bay…where padlocks, lots of padlocks, we’re to secure troops supplies.

The rest: in combat platoons. No R&R in sight. Often times, wounded. Carried and Covered in ponchos.

We’re starting Middle School (to us, it’s Big League, since in Vietnam, Middle School in the afternoon, but High-School was taught in the morning, with same and shared facilities). Of course I chose music as extra curriculum. Of course I auditioned. Of course I got picked.

But that was ahead of the story.

Our first school live concert featured “He ain’t heavy”.

Our school was all-concrete, not green-jungle. Yet I felt the emotion, trembling with in each note from the harmonica solo. “It’s the long long road”…(the decade before, we’ve got “On the road”. Decades later, we’ve got “The Road”.) But that year, right after Tet 68, we’ve got “the long long road”, and victory was not in sight…perhaps “a stalemate”.

Peace (withdrawal) with honour. Carry him. He ain’t heavy. Get the Hell out of Nam. The joke of the day was “what? you’re gonna ship me to Nam” (I am already here).

Our class did not start until the city had cleared the gun smokes, and grenades (like going back to school post-pandemic). And the music “M, I love you….with a love that never ends” (Quoc Dung) somehow made everything feel “normal” again.

I thought I had found an outlet for my restless soul. While real Californian got shipped to Nam, we who were in Nam, dreamed of California (All the leaves are brown, and the sky is grey)

Of that class 68-75, in my section – which was in the back of the class – all tall guys – struggled with growing pain. all were Black and Brown belts, except for myself, the singer and screamer, a White belt who broke an arm first month into Hapkido. The rest of our crew: one injured in the head due to a traffic accident (50 years on), one came back from the front with only one good eye, one in a wheelchair after trying to steady a fallen steel door from crushing a child. others escaped by boat to finally see California Dreaming realized.

He ain’t heavy. He’s my brother.

Those who stayed behind had the work cut out for them: from sunrise to sunset and beyond, hand-to-mouth existence. I know a classmate who turned deaf after a tour of the Cambodia war. It’s our Vietnam war (the previous one, they called American War) or aptly put “the Killing Field”.

Which American war? please specify. America got into a lot of wars. It’s a military industrial complex, churning out ammunition supplies by the hour. Billions and billions of ammos, luckily, this time around gets put to good use: stopping Putin.

He ain’t heavy. Never has been. From Zelensky to my classmate. My brother. My Dad. My brother-in-law. My neighbour (whose casket was draped in flag). My cousin-in-law who up to this day, was still M.I.A.

He ain’t heavy.

Average age: 21 (some died younger)

Most smoked Pall Mall, Marlboro, Lucky strike and Salem. Who gives a s… about lung cancer when one can die any time. No prospects of an R&R in Bangkok. Hey baby. Bang! Bullet-struck. On Human tissues. Through the Flesh and not flak jackets.

He ain’t heavy. Our classmates of 68-75. In wheel chair, with pirates’ patch or on constant dose of tranquilliser over half a century. Been a long long road….winding road…lead me to your door….don’t let me standing here.

We’re “half a man I used to be”. It’s Yesterday. Live and let die. Yet, per Marlantes, young men were pushed into playing God, to pull the trigger and decide the fate of others. No wonder PTSD. No wonder opioid.

Back then, the average life expectancy was 50-60. It’s in our “twist” song: “how long can you last: 60 years of life”. Then it proceeds to divvy up into three parts: first 20 for education etc… extremely fatalistic with no regrets amidst death and destruction. No wonder the soul of Vietnam lives on, while it’s body withers. Think again! America or Vietnam? Which country engages in more wars?

Perhaps it’s a stalemate. Both sides got wounded and unhealed for those lucky few who got carried to medivac, to a M.A.S.H.-like tent back at the base.

He ain’t heavy.

He’s my brother. I went on to take the mike. And we performed at inter-school show. Among the songs: California Dreaming.