afternoon in Cam Lo Ville

(It was late summer, 1968.  We were operating near the Cam Lo resettlement village.  A South Vietnamese colonel standing near my gun team was hitting a tiny girl of maybe nine years across the face with a riding crop. One of my gunners, Bobby Baker, grabbed the colonel and threw him to the ground.  The colonel’s aide, a young looking lieutenant, started to draw his pistol.  Fred Pitts was carrying the machine gun.)

afternoon in Cam Lo Ville

Pitts racked back the bolt
of the M-60,
swung the gun across
his waist,

lined it up
with the colonel’s aide,
and thumbed the safety off.

the little lieutenant
wavered in the heat,
his hand half clearing
the big pistol,

as fearful of Pitts’
flat gaze
as of the machine gun.

the colonel
lay motionless, still
clutching the riding crop.

    later, lost
    in chopper noise,
    I mouthed,
    ‘Would you have shot him?’

    Pitts smiled his big grin
    and lipped deliberately,

    ‘Blown him away.’

(as a footnote: we got in one hell of a lot of trouble over this incident.)