1968 — A HISTORICAL NOVEL: CHAPTER 18

No Happiness in This Vietnam Valley

Patrick McDonald and the members of Kilo Company embark on yet another day of trying to survive in a faraway jungle.

Rain was pouring down into the Song Lo Dong Valley, making this day like just about every other day in the jungles of Vietnam. Fucking miserable. Patrick McDonald had grown used to the constant barrage from the skies, walking around in a uniform that was either soaked by rain, soaked by sweat, or soaked by traversing through swampy water. He couldn’t imagine what he smelled like, but then he’d catch a whiff of the guy next to him and he’d get an idea. Patrick was convinced that animals were more hygienic than he and the rest of the grunts.

What he hadn’t grown used to is watching comrades die, but if he was being perfectly honest with himself, it was better them than him, which is what any other Marine would say. If that made him a selfish prick, an asshole in a foxhole, so be it, but it certainly didn’t make him different. If there’s one thing Patrick had come to learn during his tour of duty, it was that there’s nothing noble about dying.

All that bullshit you hear about dying for your country fighting the good fight, protecting the American way of…