PHILADELPHIA: A 12-year-old girl’s poem on napalm bombing in Viet-Nam has caused the Pentagon to cancel 13,000 subscriptions to a Sunday school magazine, the Presbyterian Board of Christian Education said today [Feb 14].

The magazine “Venture”, which has a circulation of 130,000 is used in Protestant Sunday schools of American military bases.

The board said the Pentagon described the poem as “an embarrassing item”.

The poem, written by Barbara Beidler, of Vero Beach, Florida, is entitled “Afterthoughts on napalm drop on jungle villages of Haiphong”.

Part of the poem reads:

“There there was the flash — silver and gold, silver and gold

Silver birds flying,

Golden water raining.

The rice ponds blazed with new water,

The jungle burst into gold and sent up little birds of fire.

Little animals with fur aflame

Then the children flamed,

Running — their clothes flying like fiery kites

Screaming — their screams

Dying as their faces seared.

The women’s baskets burned on their heads

The men’s boats glazed on the rice waters...

Listen Americans,

Listen clear and long:

The children are screaming

In the jungles of Haiphong.”

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies in Damascus] Syrian Defence Minister General Hafez Assad today warned that if Israel did not stop its threats of aggression, the Arabs will carry out “successive punitive expeditions”.

The General, speaking at a military base, was making his second attack in three days against Israel, Jordan and the Iraq Petroleum Company.

Published in Dawn, February 15th, 2017