Men don't cry (1975)

[plsgoawaywhoisthis]

they said real men don't cry
so they shipped them to Nam
dropped them in jungles
and told them, stay calm

m-16s in trembling hands
mud up to the knees
mosquito bites and blood and sweat
god, it ate them piece by piece

"agent orange won't hurt you"
they swore through their teeth
while men watched the jungle die
and coughed beneath

hueys cut the sky in half
radio static and gunfire laugh
boys barely twenty
faces gone gray
another body bag
another day

"charlies close", the sgt. said
eyes so wide in the tet sun
so they lit the trees with napalm rain
and called the duty done

saigon on fire
mothers screaming in smoke
somewhere a kid's photograph
burned inside a coat

they came home to stares
not medals or cheers
just silence
and nightmares that lasted years

whiskey and pills to drown the hum
wives who slept beside a shell
kids who learn that men don't tell

the wars long done
but in the breath of their pores
in shaky herds and broken tones

they said real men don't cry
but they do
they just do it
where no one can see through