ALL IN A DAY

The days and nights are lonely
And the time goes ever slow
You live from day to day
Just wondering where you'll go.

You think about the home lands
As you lie awake at night
Wondering if the people back home
Really think it's right.

As the sun comes above the horison
You're up and ready to go
No one knows the feeling
Everyone has his own.

When the word is given to move
The tensions begin to grow
The thought crosses every mind again
Just wondering where we'll go.

As you move along
Your faith is pure and strong
But yet there is the question
Will your faith lead you wrong.

As you stop for chow
You think of home cooked food
Then your thoughts are shattered
As the order is given to move.

Again you move along
The sun beats down its rays
A burst of AK is fired
Immediately you begin to pray.

As you return the fire
You think of your job and what you're to do
Knowing that if you don't get him
Then he will get you.

After the fight is over
And you have calmed down
You search out the area
To see if any more are around.

At the closing of the day
Your mind is filled with thoughts
Of the days activities
And what that they have brought.

Do the people really care
Or is it all in vain
Or are we just another link
In their life long chain.

But as the day is closing
And you sit up for the night
Again, you wonder if the people back home
Really think it's right.

3rd Platoon, A Company
2/501st Battalion, 101st Airborne

The Sheepdogs by Russ Vaughn

2d Bn, 327th Parachute Infantry Regiment
101st Airborne Division
Vietnam 65-66

Most humans truly are like sheep
Wanting nothing more than peace to keep
To graze, grow fat and raise their young,
Sweet taste of clover on the tongue.
Their lives serene upon Life’s farm,
They sense no threat nor fear no harm.
On verdant meadows, they forage free
With naught to fear, with naught to flee.
They pay their sheepdogs little heed
For there is no threat; there is no need.

To the flock, sheepdog’s are mysteries,
Roaming watchful round the peripheries.
These fang-toothed creatures bark, they roar
With the fetid reek of the carnivore,
Too like the wolf of legends told,
To be amongst our docile fold.
Who needs sheepdogs? What good are they?
They have no use, not in this day.
Lock them away, out of our sight
We have no need of their fierce might.

But sudden in their midst a beast
Has come to kill, has come to feast
The wolves attack; they give no warning
Upon that calm September morning
They slash and kill with frenzied glee
Their passive helpless enemy
Who had no clue the wolves were there
Far roaming from their Eastern lair.
Then from the carnage, from the rout,
Comes the cry, “Turn the sheepdogs out!”

Thus is our nature but too our plight
To keep our dogs on leashes tight
And live a life of illusive bliss
Hearing not the beast, his growl, his hiss.
Until he has us by the throat,
We pay no heed; we take no note.
Not until he strikes us at our core
Will we unleash the Dogs of War
Only having felt the wolf pack’s wrath
Do we loose the sheepdogs on its path.

And the wolves will learn what we’ve shown before;
We love our sheep, we Dogs of War.