ZOOMIE HEAVEN

No CIB’s, no Purple Hearts,
just R.E.M.F.’s were my breatheren.
But surely when I’m old and gray,
I’ll go to ZOOMIE HEAVEN.

You wonder how this guarantee
might have accrued to me;
The first I heard about it
was just recently.

While at The Wall on Memorial Day
in May of ’89;
The day that Rolling Thunder came
To The Wall the second time.

We walked along The Wall that day
and walked again that night.
When “ZOOMIE !”, “ZOOMIE !” loud and clear,
beckoned from the right.

Among the guys assembled on
The steps near Mirror Lake;
A “little guy” – ‘bout five foot six from Khe Sanh ’68.

He’d seen my Air Force patch, on the
Jungle threads I wore;
and as he hugged me many times,
he told me how he’d swore.

When he was hunkered down in mud
in a bunker on Route 9;
That if he ever got outta there,
that he’d try to find.
Every swinging Mother’s Son
who’d worn the Air Force Blue.

For he was with six thousand Grunts
against an enemy who
Had mustered 40,000 troops
Cong, and NVA too.
The enemy, they thought, had
another Dien Bien Phu !

The days were hot or they were wet,
the nights were terribly long.
And through it all, the Grunts hung on
they fought against the Cong.

The Air Force started dropping bombs,
Then more and more each day,
Rained them on those Khe Sanh hills,
Denuding them, they say.

The aircraft making ammo drops,
took out the wounded too.
Murderous fire and mortar rounds
brought down a bird or two.

But still the missions, just the same,
continued their re-supply.
The air crews knew the odds were bad,
an easy way to die.

Far overhead, B-52’s were
dropping tons and tons,
F-105’s and Phantom Jets;
with Napalm and their guns.

Close air support had saved the day,
we had lost five hundred men.
The enemy had suffered too,
10,000 met their end.

Some distant mind in Washington
Declared the battle stopped.
We walked away from Khe Sanh’s mud,
Paid with blood, drop by drop.

It’s twenty years since we were there,
it seems like yesterday,
And out of nowhere comes a Grunt:
yelling “ZOOMIES ! ALL THE WAY !”.

Us ZOOMIES rarely ever knew
the combat troop’s desires.
In spite of all the gut-wrench fear
to live another day.

When we talk to combat vets,
It’s then we appreciate
The comfort ZOOMIES lived in,
however our final fate.

But – Never doubt those flying crews,
those Angels of the skies,
For they have saved a many a Grunt,
and we all know the reason why.

What Marines on land have always known,
the Air Force knows on high . . .

You need not be a Jarhead,
To answer . . . “Semper Fi”