Vietnamese Lessons (i) and Vietnamese Phrase Book (i)

from poet Edward Kissam, publishers Anvil Press Poetry and Headquarters, Department of the Army

On July 10, 1962, by order of the Secretary of the Army, his deputy the General of the United States Army, George Henry Decker, Chief of Staff, with his own deputy the Adjutant General, Joseph Calvin Lambert, published from Headquarters this Department of the Army Pamphlet 20-611 “for the use of all concerned.”

George the chief favored special war as did his president that year, and their secretary who had commissioned the work. Joe the adjutant had risen through enlisted ranks before the second war for the world, when as brass he managed supply of men and officers for lengthy and intense combats that chewed up bodies and careers. In the third war for the world he emphasized selection boards, promoting talent.

2 serious publishers. They distributed from an ancient postal code, Washington 25, D.C., 10 thousand copies of DA Pam 20-611 to 8 units of the Active Army:

first, 2 to Personnel, second, 15 to Intelligence, third, 25 to Operations, fourth, 1 to Logistics, fifth, 5 to Community Relations, sixth, 2 to Information, seventh, 1 thousand 9 hundred and 50 to the Continental Army and, eighth, 8 thousand to the Pacific, and

0 copies to the National Guard or the United States Army Reserve. We did not mobilize the folks back home for special war.

Chào ông

Chào bà

Chào cô

Tôi là lính Mỹ

Tôi là sĩ-quân Mỹ

muốn tìm bạn giúp việc chống quân địch.

I surmise that it was over winter in 1970 when Peter Jay of Anvil Press Poetry printed from London 1 poem on a single sheet printed in 2 colors, cut at least once, folded 3 times for 8 pages and priced both sixpence and a dime that advertised a book of poems by Edward Kissam forthcoming Spring, 1970 titled The Sham Flyers, aptly, since the title announced on that flyer did not appear until 1972.

Michael Schmidt still sells that book from Anvil Press Poetry at his Carcanet Press, as well as a 1969 title from Edward. The two men translated Aztec poems together for a later volume and Edward has collaborated on a book about farmworkers of the United States of America. This is all very Viet Nam, in an Anglophone Atlantic, 1970s, way, but the war let alone the country appear as a few words only in either The Sham Flyers or Jerusalem and The People that I found once but failed to just now.

I imagine Vietnamese Lessons as a flyer that took the demonstrations of 1970 as a target of opportunity. The movement of the United States of America out of Viet Nam ground on through the cold and the poet found poetry to address it in a document from the special war, passed on by some rogue commando.

My mother’s oldest brother used an anvil press to synthesize diamond in the General Electric labs at Schenectady, New York, when Kurt Vonnegut wrote their press releases. I don’t sense Kurt’s technical background in Jay, his authors Edward and Michael, or their readers. The notorious sex club in New York City was 5 years later.

Anvil Press Poetry recalls to me rather Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and his village smith under the spreading chestnut tree, “Week in, week out, from morn till night, you can hear his bellows blow; you can hear him swing his heavy sledge, with measured beat and slow, like a sexton ringing the village bell, when the evening sun is low.” How did Edward forge this Anvil Press broadside from Pamphlet 20-611?

This was the first Viet Nam letter of 2 so far presenting Vietnamese Lessons by Edward Kissam and Vietnamese Phrase Book from the Department of the Army. The second posted on September 25, 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.