The Sixties were a turbulent decade, a time of racial unrest, political assassinations, flower power, and the Vietnam War. For this book, the war was the most important because it led to the draft, and to these poems as a way to stay sane while in the Army. They provide a window to what I observed around me and within, not only during basic training but during the years that immediately followed. Looking back, some of the poems show a "make love, not war" naïveté and a burgeoning love of nature.