Field Notes
It was the first time I ever saw a man shot. Charlie usually blended into the jungle like invisible, venomous snakes. For some reason, this one moved. It was a fatal movement. Instantly, three bursts of M-16 bullets struck him at once. Already dead, he dance like a doll, jerked by the fingers of some spastic puppet master. It was funny to watch that dance of death. Then the VC began to return fire in earnest, and it wasn’t a joke anymore.
A large piece of shrapnel had taken the kid’s arm off just above the elbow. I removed the tourniquet, slopped on some hydrogen peroxide, bandage the wound. The kid never cried, just whimpered. He looked at me with an old man’s accusing eyes. Maybe he was nine. With them, you could never tell.
Thirty feet into a vertical take off an unlucky bullet clipped our fuel line. We dropped straight as death, a three story descent back into Hell. The chopper was ruined, but no one was hurt. No big deal. There were plenty more choppers.
Occasionally, it would stop raining. So occasionally that it seemed abnormal. I had long since stopped living with mildew and become mildew. Let it rain.
Cow Man was a big blonde kid from a Minnesota farm. He had a Diary Princess girlfriend. We had all seen her picture. They were going to milk cows and make babies. The sniper’s bullet took him just between his shoulder blades. A big hole exploded where his heart had been. He was two days short of going home. Now the milking would be late, and the babies would have a different daddy.
The tracers reached up like arrows shot from the rosy fingered dawn. They missed. Troy or Vietnam, just the same old war.
If you like this piece, and can afford it, consider offering up a few coins to feed the Muse. Baby needs a new pair of shoes.
