'Weightier Than All the Gear I’ll Carry'

I was a lazy student of Latin in junior high school and gave it up after two years. What I retained was a lasting interest in mythology, Roman history and etymology. I probably learned more English words than Latin – celerity, pulchritude, jocular, spelunker, procrastination, sartorial – all of these and more I owe to my teacher, Miss Chambers. 

History and etymology converged in a Latin word that retains its spelling in English: impedimenta. In second-year Latin we translated passages from Commentarii de Bello Gallico – Julius Caesar’s Commentaries on the Gallic War, which famously begins “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres . . .”  That’s where I first encountered impedimenta, which the OED defines as “things which impede or encumber progress; baggage; travelling equipment (of an army, etc.).” In the Gallic War, it referred to the armor, weapons, tools and other supplies that accompanied the Roman troops. The connection with the English word impediment is obvious. It's a hindrance or obstruction.

 

Much about the military remains unchanged after millennia. R.L. Barth in 1968-69 was a Marine serving as a patrol leader in the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion in Vietnam. In “Preparing to Patrol,” Bob catalogs the impedimenta he carried:

 

“Before tomorrow’s briefing and insertion,

Tonight I check the gear that I’ll be humping:

Clean M-16 (I hope I’ll never need),

Eighteen or twenty magazines, grenades

(Frags, Willie Peter, smokes,), flares, bayonet,

Block of C-4 explosive, blasting cap,

Compass, watch, field dressing, sleeping bag

(Nights in the mountains can be wicked cold),

Four canteens, strobe light, extra camo stick

Of grease paint (sweat and monsoons both demand it),

Four days of long rats (only fools lug C-s),

Two pencils, notebook, handful of salt tabs,

And, weightier than all the gear I’ll carry,

The lives of the nine men that I’ll be leading.”

 

Bob explains the poem’s origin: “The other day, someone or other posted some Vietnam War photos, and Susan and I got to talking. I'm not sure she really wanted to know, but she asked what I carried on patrol. We talked about the subject for a bit, and then I decided I would write what I consider a documentary poem, cataloguing what I carried. Having written the first draft, it occurred to me that maybe a pure catalogue required something to redeem it as a poem, hence the opening and concluding lines.”