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This is something I wrote twenty years ago. It seems timely that I share it with you now. Ken THE …
This is something I wrote twenty years ago. It seems timely that I share it with you now.
Ken
THE GRUNT AND DR. KING
“Well, here I am, anonymous all right. With guys nobody really cares about. They come from the end of the line, most of ‘em. Small towns you never heard of…Two year’s high school’s about it. Maybe, if they’re lucky, a job waiting for ‘em back in a factory. But most of them got nothing. They’re poor. They’re the unwanted. Yet, they’re fighting for our society and our freedom. It’s weird isn’t it? They’re from the bottom of the barrel and they know it. Maybe that’s why they call themselves grunts. Because a grunt can take it. A grunt can take anything.
From the movie: Platoon
When we were children we sang in rounds. Remember?
“Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream…
Row, row, row your boat….”
Remember how fascinated we were when we realized that everyone was singing the same song. Sometimes we forget the best lessons of childhood.
Dr. King: So I say to you my friends,
that even though we must face
the difficulties of today and tomorrow,
I still have a dream.
It is a dream
deeply rooted in the American dream
that one day
this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning
of its creed –
we hold these truths
to be self-evident,
that all men
are created equal.
The Grunt: I want to tell you something
my pardner Chapman told me.
Chapman was a white kid
who grew up in a town
out west.
The folks that lived there were bigots.
Not racists who ever got in a man’s face
to tell him what they thought,
but quiet folks
that just ignored black people,
like they didn’t exist.
Dr. King: I have a dream
that one day on the red hills of Georgia,
sons of former slaves
and sons of slave-owners
will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
The Grunt: Chapman checked into the base camp
of the First Air Cav
in early 1968…
fresh meat.
After he went through in-processing
at personnel
he went to the supply tent
to draw his field gear.
Dr. King: I have a dream
my four little children
will one day live in a Nation
where they will not be judged by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
The Grunt: The list of stuff covered most
of the front and back
of the equipment issue form.
When all the gear had been piled
onto the counter
the grunt signed the form
to indicate that he had received
his full combat issue.
After he’d signed
he stuffed all the gear
into his ruck sack
and slung it onto his back.
It weighted somewhere between
60 and 80 pounds
and the grunt carried it
until the day he died
or the day he got medevaced…
Nobody thought much
about normal rotation
out of country.
Dr. King: I have a dream that one day,
even the state of Mississippi,
a state sweltering with
the heat of injustice,
sweltering with
the heat of oppression,
will be transformed into an oasis
of freedom and justice.
The Grunt: The basic load
for a grunt in Vietnam
included such items as
an M-16,
200 rounds of ammunition,
web gear,
6 frag grenades,
ammunition magazines,
a protective mask
for use against chemical weapons,
an entrenching tool,
a claymore mine and detonator…
on and on.
Dr. King: I have a dream
that one day, down in Alabama,
with its vicious racists,
with its governor
having his lips dripping with the words
of interposition and nullification,
that one day, right there in Alabama,
little black boys and girls
will be able to join hands
with little white boys and girls
as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
The Grunt: Before you went to Vietnam
nobody ever told you
how much stuff you had to hump in the bush.
Well, Chapman went to supply
to get his issue…
In every supply room
there is a counter
where a troop stands
to receive his gear.
Everything behind the counter
belongs to the supply sergeant.
The supply sergeant is sovereign
in his domain.
Dr. King: I have a dream
that one day
every valley shall be exalted,
every hill and mountain
shall be made low,
the rough places shall be made plain,
and the crooked places
shall be made straight
and the glory of the Lord
will be revealed
and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope.
This is the faith
that I go back to the South with.
The Grunt: Chapman stood at the counter
and told the supply sergeant
what he needed.
The supply sergeant was black.
And he was old…
thirty-seven or thirty-eight.
Only had a year or two left
to retirement.
Puttin’ in his time.
Well, the supply sergeant
hands Chapman an equipment issue form
and tells him
to enter the quantity issued
beside each line item on the page.
Then the supply sergeant
started piling stuff
onto the counter.
Chapman started writing…
and the stuff just kept coming.
While it’s piling up
it dawns on my pardner, Chapman,
that he’s going to have to hump
all this gear
up and down the mountains
of the central highlands 0
and he started getting pissed.
Took it personal, ya’ know?
He got to thinking that
this black, son-of-a-bitch sergeant
was enjoying loading up a white boy
with all this stuff.
The longer he stood there
the more pissed he got.
Dr. King: With this faith
we will be able
to hew out of the mountain of despair
a stone of hope.
With this faith
we will be able to transform
the jangling discord of our nation
into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith
we will be able to work together,
to pray together,
to struggle together,
to go to jail together,
to stand up for freedom together,
knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day
when all of us God’s children
will be able to sing with new meaning -
“my country ‘tis of thee;
sweet land of liberty;
of thee I sing.
Land where my father’s died,
land of the pilgrim’s pride;
from every mountain side,
let freedom ring.” –
and if America
is to be a great nation,
this must be true….
The Grunt: The supply sergeant goes to digging around
in one of his equipment bins
and Chapman is puttin’
a mean look on him
while his back is turned.
All of a sudden
the supply sergeant turns around
to say something
and he sees this look
that Chapman is giving him.
The supply sergeant didn’t say nothin’.
He just walked around the counter,
looks at Chapman for a second…then,
he puts his arm around Chapman’s shoulder
and the supply sergeant says:
“Son, you got to understand –
we’re all niggers here.”
There it is.
Folks back here in the world think that bein’ a nigger means
what color your skin is.
It ain’t just that.
Bein’ a nigger means
that you’re alone
and vulnerable
and totally expendable.
The people sending you out to die
don’t even know your name.
I can’t tell you what a black man’s
experience is,
‘cause I ain’t black.
But I can tell you
what it means to be a nigger –
‘cause I been one.
After all that suffering
and all that pain
that’s what I learned from Vietnam:
Nobody has the right
to treat another human being like a nigger.
Not ever.
Dr. King: And when we allow
freedom to ring,
when we let it ring from every village
and hamlet,
from every state and city,
we will be able to speed up that day
when all God’s children –
black men and white men,
Jews and Gentiles,
Catholics and Protestants –
will be able to join hands and sing
in the words of that old Negro spiritual,
“Free at last,
free at last:
thank God almighty,
we are free at last.”
It was a lesson we learned in the innocence of childhood. The world is recreated at the point where vision and experience converge.
Ken
THE GRUNT AND DR. KING
“Well, here I am, anonymous all right. With guys nobody really cares about. They come from the end of the line, most of ‘em. Small towns you never heard of…Two year’s high school’s about it. Maybe, if they’re lucky, a job waiting for ‘em back in a factory. But most of them got nothing. They’re poor. They’re the unwanted. Yet, they’re fighting for our society and our freedom. It’s weird isn’t it? They’re from the bottom of the barrel and they know it. Maybe that’s why they call themselves grunts. Because a grunt can take it. A grunt can take anything.
From the movie: Platoon
When we were children we sang in rounds. Remember?
“Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream…
Row, row, row your boat….”
Remember how fascinated we were when we realized that everyone was singing the same song. Sometimes we forget the best lessons of childhood.
Dr. King: So I say to you my friends,
that even though we must face
the difficulties of today and tomorrow,
I still have a dream.
It is a dream
deeply rooted in the American dream
that one day
this nation will rise up
and live out the true meaning
of its creed –
we hold these truths
to be self-evident,
that all men
are created equal.
The Grunt: I want to tell you something
my pardner Chapman told me.
Chapman was a white kid
who grew up in a town
out west.
The folks that lived there were bigots.
Not racists who ever got in a man’s face
to tell him what they thought,
but quiet folks
that just ignored black people,
like they didn’t exist.
Dr. King: I have a dream
that one day on the red hills of Georgia,
sons of former slaves
and sons of slave-owners
will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
The Grunt: Chapman checked into the base camp
of the First Air Cav
in early 1968…
fresh meat.
After he went through in-processing
at personnel
he went to the supply tent
to draw his field gear.
Dr. King: I have a dream
my four little children
will one day live in a Nation
where they will not be judged by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today!
The Grunt: The list of stuff covered most
of the front and back
of the equipment issue form.
When all the gear had been piled
onto the counter
the grunt signed the form
to indicate that he had received
his full combat issue.
After he’d signed
he stuffed all the gear
into his ruck sack
and slung it onto his back.
It weighted somewhere between
60 and 80 pounds
and the grunt carried it
until the day he died
or the day he got medevaced…
Nobody thought much
about normal rotation
out of country.
Dr. King: I have a dream that one day,
even the state of Mississippi,
a state sweltering with
the heat of injustice,
sweltering with
the heat of oppression,
will be transformed into an oasis
of freedom and justice.
The Grunt: The basic load
for a grunt in Vietnam
included such items as
an M-16,
200 rounds of ammunition,
web gear,
6 frag grenades,
ammunition magazines,
a protective mask
for use against chemical weapons,
an entrenching tool,
a claymore mine and detonator…
on and on.
Dr. King: I have a dream
that one day, down in Alabama,
with its vicious racists,
with its governor
having his lips dripping with the words
of interposition and nullification,
that one day, right there in Alabama,
little black boys and girls
will be able to join hands
with little white boys and girls
as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
The Grunt: Before you went to Vietnam
nobody ever told you
how much stuff you had to hump in the bush.
Well, Chapman went to supply
to get his issue…
In every supply room
there is a counter
where a troop stands
to receive his gear.
Everything behind the counter
belongs to the supply sergeant.
The supply sergeant is sovereign
in his domain.
Dr. King: I have a dream
that one day
every valley shall be exalted,
every hill and mountain
shall be made low,
the rough places shall be made plain,
and the crooked places
shall be made straight
and the glory of the Lord
will be revealed
and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope.
This is the faith
that I go back to the South with.
The Grunt: Chapman stood at the counter
and told the supply sergeant
what he needed.
The supply sergeant was black.
And he was old…
thirty-seven or thirty-eight.
Only had a year or two left
to retirement.
Puttin’ in his time.
Well, the supply sergeant
hands Chapman an equipment issue form
and tells him
to enter the quantity issued
beside each line item on the page.
Then the supply sergeant
started piling stuff
onto the counter.
Chapman started writing…
and the stuff just kept coming.
While it’s piling up
it dawns on my pardner, Chapman,
that he’s going to have to hump
all this gear
up and down the mountains
of the central highlands 0
and he started getting pissed.
Took it personal, ya’ know?
He got to thinking that
this black, son-of-a-bitch sergeant
was enjoying loading up a white boy
with all this stuff.
The longer he stood there
the more pissed he got.
Dr. King: With this faith
we will be able
to hew out of the mountain of despair
a stone of hope.
With this faith
we will be able to transform
the jangling discord of our nation
into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
With this faith
we will be able to work together,
to pray together,
to struggle together,
to go to jail together,
to stand up for freedom together,
knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day
when all of us God’s children
will be able to sing with new meaning -
“my country ‘tis of thee;
sweet land of liberty;
of thee I sing.
Land where my father’s died,
land of the pilgrim’s pride;
from every mountain side,
let freedom ring.” –
and if America
is to be a great nation,
this must be true….
The Grunt: The supply sergeant goes to digging around
in one of his equipment bins
and Chapman is puttin’
a mean look on him
while his back is turned.
All of a sudden
the supply sergeant turns around
to say something
and he sees this look
that Chapman is giving him.
The supply sergeant didn’t say nothin’.
He just walked around the counter,
looks at Chapman for a second…then,
he puts his arm around Chapman’s shoulder
and the supply sergeant says:
“Son, you got to understand –
we’re all niggers here.”
There it is.
Folks back here in the world think that bein’ a nigger means
what color your skin is.
It ain’t just that.
Bein’ a nigger means
that you’re alone
and vulnerable
and totally expendable.
The people sending you out to die
don’t even know your name.
I can’t tell you what a black man’s
experience is,
‘cause I ain’t black.
But I can tell you
what it means to be a nigger –
‘cause I been one.
After all that suffering
and all that pain
that’s what I learned from Vietnam:
Nobody has the right
to treat another human being like a nigger.
Not ever.
Dr. King: And when we allow
freedom to ring,
when we let it ring from every village
and hamlet,
from every state and city,
we will be able to speed up that day
when all God’s children –
black men and white men,
Jews and Gentiles,
Catholics and Protestants –
will be able to join hands and sing
in the words of that old Negro spiritual,
“Free at last,
free at last:
thank God almighty,
we are free at last.”
It was a lesson we learned in the innocence of childhood. The world is recreated at the point where vision and experience converge.
1 Comment
-
Comment by Steven Hubbard on April 30, 2009 at 9:05am - Very enlightening Ken. God has created Man in His Image. We are all equal and linked with a mission in this world. Their is no room for prejudice and need to climb that hill of life together. War helps that become reality, but why should it be war when only ignorance stands in the way of removing that prejudicial barrier. We only need to use our God given talents to make the world a better place by reaching out to our brothers and sisters in uniting as one, and this will help to make that 'Dream' become 'Reality.'
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As you know we have lost our Senior Vice Commander. He was a Warrior and best Friend. He is at Peace with God. We will miss him. To young to leave us at 37 years old, but life is short and too short for some. The 'Celebration of Life' will be Sund...
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