There Is No Apology Poem by Roger Hudson

Handsome long-haired bearded hippies confessing on camera,
They smile embarrassed "Did I really do that? " smiles,
As they own up to atrocities seen or done in Vietnam
Prisoners hurled from gunships.
Villages shelled in sport.
Children shot for jeering.
Ears cut off for trophies.
They smile in apology.

Brainwashed by marine corps bootcamp training,
becoming teenage, unthinking, non-human, military puppets,
assaulting, killing, mutilating other non-humans
they know only as geeks, gooks, commies, …
these handsome young men with the haunted eyes smile in apology.

Aware now of the psychological mindshifts
they performed on themselves
not to see
the inhumanity
illegality
detestability
of what they and their buddies were doing
they smile in apology.

To live with it,
joke and laugh about it
play games with death and destruction
while officers, government looked on
condoned
falsified
lied
from whom no apology.

"It's in the national interest" justifies all
To individual, platoon, army and nation
But there is no justification.

And these are the good guys! !
The brave ones who confess to atrocity,
while thousands remain silent,
but does that really excuse, explain,
allow us to forgive,
lessen the horror?
There is no apology