Chapter 5
Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth (Keep down, down.
Rest your body on your legs and on your arms
and for Jesus' sake don't let your pimply ass protrude.
Cradle your rifle in the bends of your two elbows
high enough so that no sand gets in the muzzle.
Now place your hands out in front of your head,
lift your belly and your chest slightly off the ground
and drag your carcass along by pulling with the wrists.
Crawl, dammit — not like a snake, but like a baby.)
And let thy heart cheer thee (So here you are,
of all the innumerable millions of men now and before,
at all the crowded intersections on the roadmap of eternity,
you and you only, placed by war's shifting of furniture
on this barren square foot of a condemned property island
to cover the spot where the rug's a little worn.
No, you don't have to fight. There's no compulsion whatsoever.
Nobody's talking themselves red, white and blue in the face
and only the sea is behind you if you turn.
It's just you and your firearm, the enemy and his,
and a perfectly democratic opportunity to use your own judgment.)
Walk in the ways of thine heart (Get up, now.
This is where you take the tags off your uniform.
Watch your step, and remember to shoot when anything moves
and move when anything shoots. Where are the little bastards?
Where are the orphans of heaven screaming, "American, you die!"
Or Iki, waki, konki, sookekki! — spirit, harmony, stamina, total action!?
Nothing but trees wearing their hair parted in the middle
and sandalwood and frangipani and sago plants and sour mud
and camouflage suits mingling with foliage like visiting poor relations
and bullets sounding as though harpstrings were being impatiently tugged.)
And in the sight of thine eyes (Here are events
visibly projected in a changing kaleidoscope pattern of raw technicolor.
You see green-painted faces and they are stifled with caution
as men advance in the mounting strain of sound effects.
There is quick, whirring action in a riot of noise
and darkness follows light, blinding the jerky blur of finality
as death turns over another page and resumes its commentary.
There is the crisp contour of destruction in startling sequence
and a corpse with its tongue stuck out at civilization
melts dimly away in a cross texture of coming attractions.
And the actors become stage-struck, stammer and forget their lines
because the script has suddenly demanded that they interpret reality.)
Yea, if a man live many years (Look. There's Mouse,
pushing a stern expression before him as he goes forward.
The calendar slapped him on the back and offered laughter
and pretty ankles and hot swing records and seats on
the 50-yard line and a coke at the corner drugstore. . .
And what of it, if no one will ever say
that this island battle was won on the playing fields
of Pembroke Junior College?) Let him rejoice in them all.
But let him remember the days of darkness (The past
is beyond your influence, the present is something about which
you can do nothing, and the future is a mixture
of both. Let the guns argue about it among themselves.
Let the sand and the water debate as to who
shall extinguish your faltering flicker of life. And let time
break it into its component parts and pack them separately
and ship by express to the other side of tomorrow
and put the pieces together.) For they shall be many.
God will protect idiots, drunkards and Americans. It's His profession.
