Robert Schlosser


 

Buffalo Induction

Buffalo, New York. January 9, 1969. I am sworn into the U.S. Army at 3:00 p.m. I am lucky. We were lined up in rows earlier the same day. Then every fifth person was tagged for the Marine Corps. Combat loomed as a certainty for anyone sent along that route. These acts of selection really reinforced my sense of how little choice I have in this entire matter.

There is a young man named Kelly who won't consent to induction. He is repeatedly given the chance to do so, but it is no dice. His demeanor indicates this isn't a spur of the moment decision.

During his refusal the rest of us move one step forward, raise our right hands, and in unison agree to uphold and do this and do that and essentially quit being shepherds of our own destiny.

Kelly quietly sits in a chair by himself. None of us go over to talk to him. Soon Federal Marshals arrive, handcuff him, and he is gone.

I drink some beers at a dive called the Anchor Bar with fellow inductees. Sit there thinking, boy I'm sunk. Then take a bus out to Buffalo International Airport. Have a few more beers. The plane to New Jersey leaves at 9:30 p.m. An army bus takes us directly from Newark Airport to Fort Dix. We arrive at midnight. This is the start of my journey to Southeast Asia.

......................................

I wrote THE HUMIDITY READINGS (a self published collection of poems) during the 14 months I served inThailand as a military policeman. I was assigned to the 219th MP Co., 40th MP Bn., USARSUPTHAI (U.S. Army Support Thailand) from June 1969 until August 1970)

Much of my tour of duty was at Camp Friendship adjoining Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base. American jets flew missions out of there seven days a week, week after week, month after month. It wasn't very far to Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian targets.

There were several bases throughout the country used by the U.S. Air Force. We were dropping vast and varied amounts of bombs and rockets on top of people and places. I wondered why the war didn't end. Surely we had to be obliterating the enemy. They must be ready to give up. They weren't.

The ongoing, methodical operation, the seemingly normal routine of this aerial entity was quite disturbing to me. I didn't believe in it and wanted very much to distance myself from its ominous presence.

Even off the base, traces of the war clung to us. Whether we knew it or not, we were marked by our close proximity to the jets and what they were doing.

Thailand outside military constraints was humid, tropical, exotic. Mysterious, sensual, tempting; a garden of earthly and unearthly delights that could draw an American deeper and deeper into the jungle. Or down off-linits back alleys. Or into hotel rooms with beautiful young whores.

So, within this fascinating country, many thousands of young Americans lived and worked, for a war that made less and less sense.

There were doors that led away from the endless departures and returns of the jets. You could open one and slip through to the other side.

......................................

FIRST NIGHT IN THAILAND


The first night in Bangkok was Singha
beer
ice-cold,
and two pimps knocking on my door
with propositions of the flesh.
An air-conditioned conversation-
would I buy a whore
to spend the night?
Too tired, too new in the country--
I said no.
Sat in my room with the lights off
getting drunk--
inner mechanisms
mind and organs quiverin
with International Dateline
transitions.
An inebriated curiosity
ozzed from those lizard walls
at the Golden Palace Hotel.


PLANE DOWN

 

An Air Force plane crashed in the
5 to 6 a.m. rain
at Korat Air Force base.
Some people were killed.

The word is it was
a reddish glow followed by
a nearly silent crash
to sodden earth.

This is 6 September '69.
Americans suddenly mangled dead
in Thailand.
It don't mean nothin.


NIGHTMARE FAIR

 

An ugly congrlomerate
of rumpled peddlers
with ash-gray hair
calling obscenely for me to buy their horrible
devastating wares.
Bloody pigs
shrunken children's heads.
Whining toothless beggars
with slimy cups
and eyes staring dumbly at the hissing crowd.
Noises growing louder,
shrieks and sobs
down low to the ground.
All around in that stifling air
moaning guards
held me captive.


FEAR OF SKY DEATH


And when I flew down to Bangkok,
there were
mountains and plains
and rice
and watermelon.

There were water flowers
sweetly fragrant,
and I was a military vagrant.
In that sky going south
from Chiang Mai
for miles and miles,
I slipped through
clouds
and thought of crashing
into a green
canopy.


JUKEBOX SOUL BRAIN


Shanty
hootch bars
with jukebox good
times,
backroom cribs
and
fights out back.
MP's on road patrol
walk in the doors
to rock and roll
American souls
sittting with reds
on their
brains.
And everything
is just routine.


LEARN


Learn from
brown skin
and secret sarongs.
Learn
from buffalo shit
and gnashing dog-packs
killing for scraps.
Learn
from glazed-gold temple roof
and the emptiness
of the beggar's bowl.
Learn
from the wind and sudden exploding rain
on a dry dirt path.