Michael Kelley Born Van Nuys, California, 1946 Served in Vietnam, Army, 1st Battalion, 502d Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, west of Hue, Annamitic Cordillera, rifleman and machine gunner, 1969-70
				Westy and Friend, 1978, oil on canvas, 7.75 x 11.75 in.
		From letters, 1986 and 1995: I remember the randomness in the scattered piles of spent shell casings that grew next to the M-60 machine gun that I was operating. There was an odd beauty in the golden, reflective heap of spent links and brass that would litter the edge of my position in the deafening silence following the firing of the M-60. I sometimes found myself transfixed during that lull, the air heavy with the pungent smell of gunpowder and cordite, surrounded by our deadly debris, mesmerized by the haunting, abstract beauty of the battlefield, yet unable to reconcile that vision with what I had really done. What had I done? How much was a dream, how much reality? Nui Ke was a real and very big hill mass that sat squarely between the west and south forks of the Perfume River, some fifteen kilometers south of Hue. The word "nui" means mountain in Vietnamese and "Ke" is just a name without another meaning, or so I have been told. The army called it Hill 618, which was its height in meters—important to know if you're firing artillery or flying aircraft in bad weather. In June 1969 I too was washed out to sea by the powerful undertow of the draft, reaching Vietnam's shoreline in November. I served with Company D as a rifleman and machine gunner, carrying an M-60 along the torturous trails that spiderwebbed the jungle and the big mountains west of the imperial capital. I was wounded near Firebase Blitz in September 1970, when our platoon medic discovered a land mine by stepping on it. That step cost him the his legs, most of both hands, and, five days later, his life. It cost me a most unpleasant year-long hospital stay, the use of my left lung, part of my stomach, various small pieces of head, chest, and arm, and, no doubt, a bit of my sanity. The awards from my military service include the usual assortment of medals and ribbons the army gives even to its dogcatchers and slot-machine repairman. I am proud of the Combat Infantryman's Badge and the Purple Heart.