Honcho and Ho

I could go into a room, open my Vietnam
album and see their picture: Honcho
the pup, seated directly behind Ho Chi Minh,
the one who was maybe a year old that day
a G.I. snapped them in front of slats
of one side of our Camp Carter post office.

Two mutts, maybe part Shepherd, mascots,
they had free reign, in 1968, given food,
water by a hand that daily held an M16
identical to mine. I never knew how Honcho
and Ho got there, or what happened to them
after I left Vietnam. I hope they weren’t eaten.

We bought sandwiches that contained dog
meat from vendors. I didn’t know at the time
what I was eating was dog. Today I read of
a dog buried 1800 years ago archaeologists
unearthed in Belgium, preserved because
of the kind of stone it was under. The article

said that dog was sacrificed for a building,
that others, sacrificed to guide the dead
on their journey from earth to the afterlife,
were buried in other parts of Ancient Rome.
Honcho and Ho guided no one to a spirit
world. Like those who died in the war, they

too eventually died, that was it, end of story,
no rainbow bridge to cross. Dog advocates
like to say that, when a pet dies, even when
a dog or a cat is gassed or given a needle
in a kill shelter. I hope no G.I., drunk or stoned
shot one or both Camp Carter mascots.

They were beauties, beautiful together,
while I and others were part of the war
machine. You’d think I would have known
I was eating dog. Like pork, it tasted good.
I never saw one killed for food. I never killed
anyone in the war, but was asked if I did.