Boyko joined the Marines when he was 17 years old and served two tours of duty in Vietnam. (Courtesy photo)

Lenora Carver, Staff Writer 13.NOV.09
While sitting in a foxhole in Vietnam, Andrew Boyko poured the loneliness of his heart onto scraps of paper.

“I never knew I could write anything,” said the 62-year-old Transylvania County resident and the author of “Before the Wall,” a book of poems he wrote while in Vietnam.

When he was 17 years old, Boyko, who was born in Gainsburgh, Germany, and then immigrated to Buffalo, N.Y. with his parents in 1949, enlisted in the Marines. His father signed to allow for his enlistment.

“I always wanted to be a Marine,” said Boyko.

Once in boot camp, Boyko said his life immediately changed and he learned to eat, breathe and live as a Marine.

“We were told we would probably be fighting for our lives in Vietnam soon,” said Boyko. “We thought, ‘Is that a mineral or a vegetable?’ We had never heard of Vietnam before that time.”

The war had not started when Boyko enlisted, but there were newspaper articles and talk everywhere about possible future combat. After he was finished with boot camp, Boyko was asked where he wanted to be sent. Instead of choosing a camp or somewhere safe, Boyko chose to go to Vietnam.

“I am a Marine. A Marine’s goal is to be a warrior,” said Boyko.

In August 1965, shortly after the war began, Boyko stepped onto Vietnam soil and into a life filled with war and survival.

“I was one of the first guys out there,” said Boyko.

He said he was placed into a world where no one was sure about what would happen or what to do.

“We didn’t know what was out there,” said Boyko. “We just had to learn by feel.”

Boyko said they were given books, similar to a comic book, with instructions on how to look for field mines, booby-traps, mantraps and a variety of other things.

Boyko said he quickly learned three tied blades of grass, three mounds of dirt or three of anything meant a booby-trap.

Despite the training and observation, one day he fell victim to a 6-foot-wide and 6-foot-deep mantrap.

Inside the deep pit, he began looking around to make sure there were no snakes.

A fellow Marine got him out of the pit.

“Every day I thank God for where I am and what I am doing now,” said Boyko.
While in Vietnam, Boyko said untold feelings and emotions began to rise in him.

One day, while sitting in a foxhole taking turns with another soldier watching out for the enemy, Boyko began writing poetry.

He had not written a poem since the day President Kennedy was assassinated. Boyko said it was the overtaking of pure emotions then that gave him the words to put on paper.

“I was so embarrassed to let anyone know I could write poetry. It would have been considered a sissy thing,” said Boyko.

But once again, he found himself writing words on scraps of brown paper toilet tissue wrapper and torn off pieces of ration boxes.

“It was just during that timeframe when these words started to form in my mind,” said Boyko.

It was pure loneliness and thinking about home, girls, movies and life in the states that brought the formation of rhyme and rhythm from pen to paper.

“During that tour, you just thought there was no other life than the one you were living,” said Boyko.“I was just so lonely sitting in that foxhole. Then later in my tour, I didn’t expect to come home. I expected to die in Vietnam.”

Boyko would stuff every piece of brown paper or torn-off piece of box with his poems of life, death, war and home in his shirt pocket and copy them on paper back at the barracks.

His favorite poem was one called “The Night Before Christmas.”
In the poem, Boyko tells about the night he thought the enemy had come to attack him in his foxhole.

He said he raised his rifle and squeezed the trigger, only to wonder how many he killed.

The next morning, his sergeant laughed when he saw there was no enemy on the ground but a water buffalo.

“I like the poem because it was taking a scary situation and making it funny,” said Boyko.

Afraid To Share

No one knew of Boyko’s poems, and once he returned home in September 1966, he was afraid to share them.

“When I got back to the United States it was not a good idea to let anyone know you were a military individual, let alone a combat warrior,” said Boyko.
Some people were against the Vietnam War, said Boyko, and anyone who fought in it.

Boyko began rebuilding his life in the states until Feb. 17, 1968 when he was sent back to Vietnam.

“After I found out what the war was about, I wanted nothing more to do with it,” said Boyko.

But the Tet Offensive, a major campaign by the Viet Cong, broke out Jan. 31, 1968, and Boyko, along with the 27th Marines, was sent to aid the overrun troops.

“It was a national emergency. We had to go back,” said Boyko.

The Viet Cong struck the whole country at one time, and the 27th Marines were deployed at the command of President Johnson.

Boyko survived the Tet Offensive and was later honorably discharged. He then moved to California. After receiving an education in computer programming and repair from the military, he went on to hold careers in computer operations, field service engineering, truck driving, sales, handyman and as a mechanical/rail inspector.

In 1975, he returned to the military in a Marine Corps reserve. He helped form a reconnaissance-unit for the S-2 section and then transferred to El Toro in California for armory training.

It was in El Toro, Boyko said, that he “picked up his ranks” until he left the service in 1982 as a gunnery sergeant.

A few years later, Boyko retired to Pisgah Forest.

Boyko discovered Pisgah Forest when a Marine friend, Bruce King, invited him to live in his house in Hendersonville free of charge.

Boyko resided there until he found the home where he now resides with his wife, Trudy. During his military career, Boyko said, at 20 years old he saw more and did more than many people through their 70s.

“If I had to do it again, I’d gladly go,” said Boyko.

Once A Marine

Even though Boyko is no longer an active member of military, he keeps the memory of his brothers of the 27th Marines alive by holding reunions, helping record history in books like “Every Marine” or assisting with things like the Veteran’s Day ceremony.

Boyko assisted Joe Parker, a former military man, who helped start Transylvania County’s Memorial Day parade and service and the Veteran’s Day service, by speaking at the Veterans Day ceremony and handing out hats to veterans in nursing homes.

Boyko is also an active member of the Transylvania County Sheriff’s Volunteers.

“It’s the closest thing I have to the Marines now,” said Boyko. “And once a Marine, always a Marine. You cannot erase it from your blood. It will last until the day you die.”

It is his love and the pain he shared with his fellow “Marine brothers” and other soldiers that brought Boyko’s last poem and the title of his book,

“Before the Wall,” into being.

When Boyko went to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial he said all those old feelings began to arise in him again – the same feelings he felt in that foxhole.

“I started getting choked up,” said Boyko. “If you have not been in combat or a war, you would not understand this.”

He said he began to swallow his tears and you could have held a gun to his head and he wouldn’t have cared.

“I turned to stone, just like the stone that was in front of me,” said Boyko.

“You know what they went through. You know the youth that was wasted.”

He said nothing could say it better than the last line of his poem Before the Wall: “To buy back their lives I would give it all. To be with my brothers before the wall.”

To purchase Boyko’s poetry book Before the Wall, call (828) 884-9056. The book is $10.95 with an additional $2 for mailing.