Bob Koshin Hanson served as a Navy Chaplain during the chaotic Vietnam War.
This poem reflects on two intertwined wartime journeys- one carried across the ocean by a father who transported soldiers to the front and brought wounded home, and another lived years later by his son, a Navy chaplain ministering to soldiers caught in the brutal, disorienting violence of the Vietnam War. As is the case with many of koshin Hanson’s poems, it ends with a longing for peace.
What is a Sky Pilot Anyways?
Someone always addressed my dad that way,
“Hey, Sky Pilot, how are you doing?”
Dad enjoyed that, he was a Navy man,
served in three wars in some way.
He had stories after stories he told in his sermons
and in his conversations.
He would say, he was pastor, priest, rabbi, and sky pilot
on board ship, USS MIGGS, round trip
from New Jersey to Brazil to the Mediterranean, carrying
troops to battle, then bring home the
wounded and those coming home from battle. He made the trip
three times, or more, it must have been a slow, hard journey
often wondered about the burials at sea,
for the wounded who didn’t make it.
He did not talk about those, yet, sky pilot he was,
my dad, the Navy man so, I followed a sky pilo
t during the Nam era not with the same stories,
but the same rotten war.
I discovered in a different way how you talk about war,
you can’t explain its stupidity, how about peace,
Talking about that is hard these days.
Published with permission of the author.
Bob koshin Hanson is a retired Lutheran clergy and a U.S. Navy veteran. He has been writing poetry seriously since his retirement in 2007, and has served as a facilitator for Warrior Writer workshops since 2019. He has seven books available on Amazon, including the most recent, “Musings and Poems.” He is a father, grandfather, and an active member of Veterans for Peace Chapter 102 in Milwaukee, WI.