I Saw You Last Night
By Long Knife Doorgunner, Johnny Hutcherson

I often have the recurring dream of the young V.C. girl.
It hurt to see a dead lady and it is something I can’t understand.
Dead V.C. men didn’t hurt but the young girl did. 
  
I saw you last night.
It was a hot morning as we approached the L.Z. in the Huey.
All I could see was bodies floating in a rice paddy.
I had never seen that many dead people in my life.
I jumped from the ship and started picking up AK-47s and any other firearms I could find.
All the time I feared you and the other guys would see the tears in my eyes.
Then as I rolled a body over to check for a weapon, I saw the long black hair floating in the muddy water.
It was the body of a young women.
I looked up and saw you in the cockpit with a sad look on your face and a tear in your eye.
I didn’t feel I had to hide my tears anymore.
I wiped my eyes, loaded up the weapons and climbed back abroad the Huey.
I still see that young lady some nights, she floats at the foot of my bed, her long black hair swirling about as if it is in the water of that rice paddy.
Last night you were there in my dream again.
That awful dream that comes from a time in our lives we will never forget.
 So many years ago it was.
Thank you for showing me it was okay to shed a tear.
 I do feel it was you in that right seat watching me there in that paddy. 
I know we were there again just last night because I saw you.

Johnny Hutcherson—D Troop 1968
Note; The guy in the right seat had just arrived in country and was still flying with Long Knives before he joined the War Wagons.

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