help with something literatur related

[bob joe mac]

ok well I know this isn't the right place to ask about this but this is driving me insane. I need to find this poem/ short story and need help or at least a website to help me in my search.

i think it was called something along the lines of the bomber or firebomber

its roughly 3 pages long and is about a firebomber during the vietnam or korean war who has been ordered to bomb a villiage.

he compares himself to god where he can be a vengeful god or a merciful god and bomb the villigers or the crop fields in the end he bombs the crop fields.

he goes back later to see the villiage he saved and realizes there are no kids he asks where they are and one of the villigers tell him when the alarm sounded they sent the children into the crop fields to avoid the bombing...

so yeah help would be appreciated sorry mods if this doesn't belong here.

[Mr March]

"The Firebombing" by James Dickey (1923-1997). The poem is actually written in the first person and I beleive was about a pilot that performs the dropping of fuel bombs in World War II.

Edited November 2, 2004 by Mr March

[Dangaioh]

Actually it was also in an episode of M.A.S.H. ... it was when the bombadier realized that he was a bombing a village and all of a sudden called himself Jesus.

[ep. guide]

This is the episode:

81. Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler? (G-513)

November 7, 1975

Written by Burt Prelutsky

Directed by Larry Gelbart

Guest Stars: Allan Arbus, Edward Winter, Alan Fudge

Intelligence officer Flagg (Edward Winter) and psychiatrist Sidney

Freedman (Allan Arbus) grapple for the fate of a wounded officer (Alan

Fudge) who says he's Jesus Christ.

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/tv/mash/guide/

[/ep. guide]

Now since the original was a poem, then it just makes this episode of M.A.S.H. just more compelling visually.

Edited November 2, 2004 by Dangaioh

[JsARCLIGHT]

Just a correction the poem is The Firebombing by James Dickey. But Mr March is right that it is WW2 and recounts some of Dickey's own feelings of power when on bombing runs against the Japanese. Someone could have rewritten it in a Vietnam flavor but I have not seen it as such.

Edit: March caught it just as I posted.

Edited November 2, 2004 by JsARCLIGHT

[bob joe mac]

Thanks alot I read it a few years back and its always stuck me as a incredible moving poem but i could never find it again. Thanks alot.

[Mr March]

Just a correction the poem is The Firebombing by James Dickey. But Mr March is right that it is WW2 and recounts some of Dickey's own feelings of power when on bombing runs against the Japanese. Someone could have rewritten it in a Vietnam flavor but I have not seen it as such.

Edit: March caught it just as I posted.

Too much Macross 7 I guess

[Mr March]

Thanks alot I read it a few years back and its always stuck me as a incredible moving poem but i could never find it again. Thanks alot.

I never read the poem myself, but I always remembered the title from way back. A lot of literature and art came out of the aftermath of WWII and I recall this was one of those works we passed by at school.