The Naming of Parts
Today we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And tomorrow morning
We shall have what to do after firing. But today,
Today we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all the neighboring gardens
And today we have naming of parts.
This is the lower swing swivel. And this
Is the upper swing swivel, whose use you will see
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me see
Anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.
They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And then breech, the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards, for today,
Today we have naming of parts.
-by Harry Reed, a British poet, written while
he was training for World War Two
I graduated from college in June of 1964, and the following March, I was drafted into the army. The war in Vietnam was just beginning to crank up, and the volunteer soldiers – Special Forces and Marines – who had been “advising” the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam (ARVIN, in U.S. military jargon) had begun encountering what Pentagon spokesmen on the nightly news called “pockets of resistance” in its effort eradicate the Viet Cong guerillas. Then North Vietnam’s army crossed the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in force, and American troops began getting killed in significant numbers – though of course the ARVIN casualties were far worse.
President Lyndon Johnson had inherited the Vietnam “police action” from the assassinated John F. Kennedy, and although LBJ was never the hawk JFK was, he didn’t want to abandon the South Vietnamese government, even though it was notoriously corrupt. He reluctantly decided to send 10,000 more troops, backed by artillery, tanks, and B-52 bomber squadrons, hoping to end what Republican pundit William F. Buckley, Jr. called “the unpleasantness in Southeast Asia.”
I was quite sure that I’d wind up in Vietnam, and the prospect terrified me. But back then, I had no choice in the matter. As a nominal Episcopalian, I couldn’t claim conscientious objector status on religious grounds, because the Episcopal Church still felt that soldiers fighting the godless Communists were doing the Lord’s will. Fleeing to Canada wasn’t an option, for as a 21-year-old actor, I had no job skills that Canadian actors couldn’t provide. So I went through Basic Training at Fort Dix in New Jersey feeling like a man condemned to death. I tried to blunt my dread by concentrating furiously on the lethal new skills my drill instructors were teaching me, and because at the age of eleven my well-meaning stepfather had enrolled me in the National Rifle Association (then a relatively harmless organization that taught marksmanship and gun safety), I was pretty good with a rifle.
By the time my eight weeks of basic were almost over, it was April, and the cherry and crabapple trees that grew near the paths on the base on which Alpha Company, my unit, marched on its way to various training stations, were in full, glorious blossom. The contrast between the burgeoning life of the trees and the lethal weapon slung from my shoulder was so blatant it snapped me out of my grim mood and made me laugh. To compound the foolishness, the platoon sergeant began the call-and-response chant known as the Jody Cadence, because it involved a weaselly draft-dodger named Jody who was out to steal everything we troops held deal: our jobs, our cars, our girls,
“Ain’t no use to cry and sob!”
(troops repeat every line)
Jody done ripped off your job!
Ain’t no use in going back!
Jody stole your Cadillac!
Ain’t no use in going home!
Jody’s got your girl and gone!
“Am I right or wrong?”
“You’re right!”
” “Tell me if I’m wrong!”
“You’re right!”
“Sound off!”
“One, two, three, four, one-two, three-four.”
But before we got to the firing range, where the instructors would run us through the same kind of drills as Reed’s instructor, only with M-14s instead of Lee-Enfields, my mood began to sink again. The problem was that I did indeed have a girl back home, a lovely actress whom I’d met in summer stock, who had just landed a leading role on a soap opera. She played a woman with a split personality, half angel, half demon. Knowing what often happens at theaters and on the sets of tv shows, where good-looking actors and beautiful women do love scenes together, I could only hope that my girlfriend’s angel would prevail over her demon. But I knew it was probably a forlorn hope, and I lapsed into misery.
At the rifle range, we fired at man-shaped wooden targets with paper bulls’ eyes taped to their torsos. We were told to “aim center mass,” not to try for heat shots: the 7.62 caliber NATO round would easily drill through a “gook’s” body, the instructor said, and take all the fight out of him, if it didn’t kill him outright.
He went on to order us to fire in groups of three rounds in rapid succession, trying to place the bullets as close together as possible. “Take a deep breath, let it out halfway, and open fire.” I complied, channeling all my anger and despair into imagining that the target was the Jody who stealing my girl, or even the unfaithful bitch herself.
“Take a deep breath, let it out halfway, and commence firing,” he said. I complied, and channeled all my anger and despair into imagining that the target was the Jody who was stealing my girl, or even the unfaithful bitch herself. I ran through two clips, and when the instructor retrieved my targets, two of them were pierced by three holes in a tight triangle that resembled the three circles on the Ballantine Beer label.
“Outstanding, young soldier!” the instructor told me. “You Ballantined these targets! Keep it up with the next two clips, and you get an Expert Rifleman’s badge to wear on your dress uniform.”
I had no trouble earning the badge, and I felt proud of myself. It wasn’t until after I had cleaned my rifle and returned it to the rack in the barracks that I realized my “desire to do well,” as the platoon sergeant termed the urge to earn praise from my superiors, had brainwashed me into forgetting how much I hated the Army, and war in general. I had become an expert killer, and was no longer entirely human. Which was exactly the transformation Basic Training was designed to achieve as it turned quirky, individual men into identical, obedient soldiers.
As it happened, I was not sent to Vietnam. I went to Fort Gordon, in Georgia, for Advanced Training, and they made me a military policeman. MPs were serving in Vietnam as traffic control officers and also, because for reasons known only to the military mind, we were trained to fire the M-60 machine gun, as helicopter door gunners. My company got orders for Vietnam, but at the last minute, word came that the troop ship returning from Danang to pick us up had been delayed for 24 hours by a tropical storm. But the planes were all set to fly to West Germany, so another company that still had another day of training went in our place, and we wound up on a base in the Rhineland. Sheer luck – good luck, for us, bad luck for the other company. As honest generals will admit, chance has more to do with the outcome of a campaign than planning. Another reason not to trust belligerent politicians, especially those who, like Donald Trump, have never served in the military.
Poet and polymath Harry Reed was a pacifist, but when he was called up to the British Army in 1941, he did not resist. Too old to serve in combat, he spent the war translating Japan’s intercepted radio messages to its naval forces and army units. “The Naming Of Parts” reflects the bitter conflict between his conscience and his sense of duty. It is one of the subtlest, yet most powerful, anti-war poems even written.