This poem was written several years ago. It reflects the Vietnam War Era. The year was 1965. My father was in the US Air Force. He had served in Vietnam as an adviser from August 1963 – August 1964. We were now living in El Paso, Texas, stationed at Biggs Air Force Base where father was assigned to the 95th Bombardment Wing of the Strategic Air Command (a B-52 Unit). On all sides of Biggs Air Force Base was Fort Bliss. (Biggs AFB is now Biggs Army Airfield.)
I was in the 7th grade in 1965. Each day from the school playground we would watch young soldiers marching out to the training areas and back in from their field training to their barracks. It was common for us to run over to the fence and watch the young soldiers.
If we could get one of our girl classmates to go with us, the soldiers paid much more attention. The young trainees weren’t much older than those of us in grades 7 and 8. The 7th and 8th grade girls in their cotton dresses looked beautiful to the 17, 18, and 19 years old boys as they marched by singing Jodys and doing their left right left military cadence.
I wrote this poem reflecting on one of those events. The setting is movie and TV actor Johnny Crawford who had been on TVs “The Rifleman” had been drafted. He was attending basic training at Fort Bliss. The night before the event I wrote the poem about, the local news station had a feature story on Johnny Crawford. He was on the mind of most in my class because of the news story, but especially the girls’ mind as he was a teen idol at the time. Here’s the poem:
Is Johnny Crawford from the Rifleman in Your Company?
We pressed our faces up against the chain linked fence.
We were supposed to be playing soccer during physical education class.
But we ran to the chained linked fence that separated our school yard from the dirt road.
We stared at the young soldiers marching to training.
They looked so army soldier in their fatigues, helmets and carrying their M-14 rifles at right shoulder arms.
They looked like a scene out of “Combat” that we watched each week on our televisions.
While barely just four or five years older than us, they looked all grown up.
A pretty seventh grade girl got up her courage and yelled,
“Is Johnny Crawford from ‘The Rifleman’ in your company?”
There had been a recent news story of Johnny Crawford’s arrival at Fort Bliss for his basic training.
A kind three stripe sergeant responded,
“No miss, he’s in a different training company.”
“You boys going to Viet-Nam after basic?” asked the P.E. coach who had walked over and joined us.
“Maybe so, but first we got to survive this!” said a smiling boyish faced trainee.
“Quiet in the ranks!” screamed the drill sergeant.
The dust was getting thicker as the soldiers continued marching by.
Most of the seventeen and eighteen year old troopers were looking at the pretty thirteen year old blonde girl.
Some were thinking of their younger sisters back home,
Some were thinking the thoughts seventeen and eighteen years old young men have when seeing a pretty, young teenage girl, and
Some were wondering if they would live long enough to fall in love, marry, and ever have a daughter of their own.
© 2007 Jimmie A. Kepler
Originally published on Johnny Crawford’s website www.johnnycrawford.com in 2007
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