Table of Contents Acknowledgments iv Preface ix On the Death of Robert Lowell 1 On Michael Herr's Dispatches 4 Politics and Poetry in South Africa 8 The Long Road Home to Intimacy 12 An Address to Middle America 17 Places and Ways to Live 21 The United States Screw & Bolt Company 30 Learning the Hard Way 46 Waiting for the Fire 53 Preserving the American Myth 58 Going Back 61 Soldier-Poets of the Vietnam War 82 Los Norteamericanos y Centroamdrica 100 On Memorial Day 119 Stealing Hubcaps 121 On The Genre of Silence 129 A Letter to McGeorge Bundy 135 On Flag-Burning 139 Teaching the Vietnam War 143 On U.S. Policy Toward Post-War Vietnam 149 Don't Stand on Protocol 153 Hue City Re-Visited 158 A Common Language 166 Military History of W. D. Ehrhart 189 Index 191 About the Author 196.