<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;" class="">Beautiful Wreckage </span></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; line-height: normal; color: rgb(4, 51, 255); -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(4, 51, 255); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><br class=""></p><p style="margin: 0px 0px 5px; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class="">What if I didn’t shoot the old lady<br class="">
running away from our patrol,<br class="">
or the old man in the back of the head,<br class="">
or the boy in the marketplace?<br class="">
<br class="">
Or what if the boy—but he didn’t<br class="">
have a grenade, and the woman in Hue<br class="">
didn’t lie in the rain in a mortar pit<br class="">
with seven Marines just for food,<br class="">
<br class="">
Gaffney didn’t get hit in the knee,<br class="">
Ames didn’t die in the river, Ski<br class="">
didn’t die in a medevac chopper<br class="">
between Con Thien and Da Nang.<br class="">
<br class="">
In Vietnamese, Con Thien means<br class="">
<i class="">place of angels</i>. What if it really was<br class="">
instead of the place of rotting sandbags,<br class="">
incoming heavy artillery, rats and mud. <br class="">
<br class="">
What if the angels were Ames and Ski,<br class="">
or the lady, the man, and the boy,<br class="">
and they lifted Gaffney out of the mud<br class="">
and healed his shattered knee?<br class="">
<br class="">
What if none of it happened the way I said?<br class="">
Would it all be a lie?<br class="">
Would the wreckage be suddenly beautiful?<br class="">
Would the dead rise up and walk?</span></p><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; min-height: 21px;" class=""><span style="font-kerning: none" class=""> </span></div><div style="margin: 0px; line-height: normal; min-height: 21px;" class=""><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; -webkit-font-kerning: none;" class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></span>- W.D. Erhart</div></body></html>