The boy is wearing one pin that says “Bomb Hanoi”

and another saying, “Support Our Boys in Vietnam”;

he’s holding a small American flag to wave. The boy

is waiting to march in a NYC pro-war parade. Bomb

Hanoi, what his Vietnam pro-war pin tells us. Destroy

the city. Drop everything we can on it, and if we harm

innocents, well, that’s war; it’s not something we enjoy.

I’d flunked out of college that year. All I felt was alarm.

Deferment, gone. From 2-S to 1-A. Not a shred of joy

knowing the draft was coming. I tried to remain calm.

Long story, short, I enlisted in the Navy, didn’t deploy:

in a roomful of guys, took the oath, raised my right arm,

and then cracked during basic training at Camp Dewey.

For a year, antipsychotic meds like Thorazine. Therapy.