Une si jolie petite guerre (i)

bande dessinée from Marcelino Truong

Marcelino Truong and I fought in the same war. Same arms, same hats, through the back and front yards of suburbs still half orchards and truck farms.

He was there at the beginning when the Thompson and the Winchester toys were new, for the boys born after victory in Europe and Japan. I played 10 years later with their old stuff,

when the boys themselves had advanced into the Selective Service that ended the year I turned 11. Marcelino, called in his comic Marco, like the traveler between the republic of Venice and the court of Kublai Khan,

begins his tale of Saigon, 1961-3, on our common ground, where we both are native, as everyone born anywhere since is not. Sing, Muse, of the wrath of boys!

Marcelino writes here in his mother tongue, French, with some of his father’s. David Homel, who arrived at Quebec from the United States in disgust with the funny hats of war, translated the English-language edition.

This was the first Viet Nam letter of 7 so far addressed to Une si jolie petite guerre by Marcelino Truong. We sent the second on March 5, 2022, the third on March 26, 2022, the fourth on April 25, 2022, the fifth on May 28, 2022, the sixth on July 9, 2022, and the seventh on May 22, 2023.

Viet Nam letters respects the property of others under paragraph 107 of United States Code Title 17. If we asked for permission it wouldn’t be criticism. We explain our fair use at length in the letter of September 12, 2022.

The colophon of these Viet Nam letters, directly above, shows the janitor speaking with poet David A. Willson on a Veterans Day.