I have my own YouTube music channel.

There are more than fifty thousand names on the Vietnam marker, I knew about eleven of them. It's strange when

and where I think of those men, but I do remember them.

They'll come to me at times when I least expect it. I'll be playing ball or having a drink with friends, and one of those

lads will peak around a corner of my memory. I'll be scuffing along the post where I work, and something gives me

cause to remember the face of one of those Special Forces folks.

Yes, I remember them.

Sometimes when I look in on my son at night, I think of your boys.

Does anyone remember them?

I do.

There were times during the night when all the jungle sounds would stop at once. There was no dwindling down or fading away; it was all gone in a single

instant as though some signal had been transmitted out to all life: bats, snakes, monkeys, insects, picking up on a frequency that a thousand years in the

jungle might condition you to receive. But, leaving you as it was to wonder what you weren't hearing now, straining for any sound, one piece of information.

The thought that there were hundreds and thousands of NVA and VC out there just to do you harm.

The thought that you could turn any sudden silence into a space that you'd fill with everything you thought was quiet in you; it could even put you on the

approach to clairvoyance. You thought you heard impossible things: damp roots breathing, fruit sweating, fervid bug action, the heart beat of tiny animals.

You could sustain that sensitivity for a long time, either until the babbling and chittering and shrieking of the jungle had started up again, or until something

familiar brought you out of it, a chopper flying around above the canopy or the strangely reassuring sound next to you of “one going into the chamber.”

Sometimes you'd get so tired that you'd forget where you were and sleep the way you hadn't slept since you were a child. I knew a lot of people that never

got up from that kind of sleep; some called them lucky (Never knew what hit him), some called it F*(&#$ (If he'd been on the stick....), but that was

worse than academic; everyone's death got talked about. It was a way of constantly touching and turning the odds, and real sleep was a premium. I knew a

guy at Kontum who could go to sleep just like that, say, “guess I'll get some”;, close his eyes and be there, day or night, sitting or lying down, sleeping through

some things but not others; a loud radio or a one-five-five firing off in the distance wouldn't wake him, "but a rustle in the bushes fifty feet away would”.

Mostly at night what you had was on the agitated side of a half-sleep.

You thought you were sleeping but you were really just waiting. Nights there were harsh functioning of consciousness, drifting in and out of your head, looking

up through the trees at the glimmering night sky of a combat zone. One night I woke up and heard the sounds of a fire fight going on several clicks from us. We

knew it was one of our patrols but we were too far away to help. All we could do was listen to the gunfire and the call for help on the radio. Muffled by distance

it sounded like noises we made playing war games as children; it enriched the game and this was the same.

Only way out of hand at least, "too rich for all but a few serious players.”

Night Sweat is instant involuntary weight control.

Miller, A.K.A.C.

I wrote these poems after I retired from the Department of Veterans Affairs

Education Service in 2001.

A haiku (high-koo) is short three-line poem that

uses sensory language to capture a feeling or image.

Haiku poetry was originally developed by Japanese

poets.

It uses a simple (five) 5, (seven) 7, and (five) 5

syllables format.

They are often inspired by nature, a moment of beauty,

or poignant experience.

I wrote these with strong details and detailed imagery.

A special thank you Microsoft and Bill Gates.

A special thank you Microsoft and Bill Gates.

A special thank you Microsoft and Bill Gates.

A special thank you Microsoft and Bill Gates.

A special thank you Microsoft and Bill Gates.

A special thank you Microsoft and Bill Gates.

A special thank you Microsoft and Bill Gates.

A special thank you Microsoft and Bill Gates.