Here's a story I wrote.

[Trebor]

Here's a story I worte while suffering from insomnia. It's a first person account of the vietnam war. I'm not sure of the historical acuricies but here goes:

I remember, when I was a child, waiting for my father to come home. I was always told he was protecting me. From what I never knew until I was sixteen when a teacher told me about a man named Hitler who invaded lots of countries. Until then I never really knew about my father.
When I got home that evening I asked my mother about him. She told me he was a soldier in the U.S. Army who had died after throwing himself on a grenade to save a companion of his. When my mother finished we were both crying. While I had never known my father, I always thought him to be a brave and noble man. It was my father who influenced my decision to enlist myself.
In ‘67 I was told I had to leave my home to fight in a country I had never heard of, Vietnam. I accepted this with the honour I knew I should. My wife was so proud of me. She knew I was making a better life for our unborn child and us. We were hoping for a girl. The only question I could think of was as to wheter or not the war would be over in time for me to see my wife give birth. Would it be over in two months?
Four days after receiving my notice I left for ‘nam as it was now being called by the media. When our boat pulled into the harbour I was amazed at the difference in our cultures. Where, in America you’d have an enormous concrete warehouse, here there was little more then a few wooden shacks with galvanise roofs. All over the wooden and galvanise dock were soldiers unloading ships of food, clothes and guns. This was all done with fifty odd soldiers patrolling. I asked a guy next to me about why so many were needed and he replied “Even though we’ve only been here four days; these Vietcong have already killed thirty of us.”. By now I was starting to come down off the adrenalin high I was feeling just moments ago.
I was to go directly to our base at the front lines. The driver of our truck had been telling us about what was happening here the about how the biggest problem was that no American could tell the difference between the north and South Vietnamese.
When we arrived at out base I was shocked by what was going on; men were holding shotguns to their mouths, burning spare truck tires for barbecues, there were men who had limbs blown of cleaning the weapons of their fellow troops. I had began to wonder about the competency for the men who were responsible for my life.
The next day I and some of the men from my unit left for the local village that was supposed to be friendly to us. As we drove around we were greeted by woman yelling things like “Sucky sucky five dolla’” and “Hey soldier boy.”. I thought to my self how badly these women must be of to offer oral sex for so little. Would this happen if America was invaded? Would Kat have to do this?
Two months had past since I arrived here and there was no sign of the war coming to an end. By now most of my friends had been injured, some mentally, some physically. I knew that in the future they’d say that no soldier could have survived Vietnam without having taken a life. It was true. I’d been waking up every night thinking about my “game” as he was now being called. I knew I was not alone in this, as, in the middle of the night, it was not unusual to be woken up at night by the screams of others. This often encouraged other to let out their screams, just like in a dog pack, which out here was what we all became, a dog pack.
A week and a half later I received a letter from Kat, enclosed was a picture of her and our son. While I had been hoping for a girl I couldn’t have cared less about such a trivial matter. After two and a half months here I had decided that all life is precious and that to have a preference for one type over another is ridiculous.
Very little news had reached us by way of the media but when it did it always seemed to be huge. The last report we got was that some fucking nigger named Casscius Clay refusing to fight. This was proof that coons were a bunch of ungrateful assholes. I mean, we give them a great life in America and they won’t fight to preserve it? Makes no sense to me.
I was always writing home to Kat and Anthony even thought they had never received a letter. The next one I sent I’d make sure they got it. I must have made at least fifty deals around the camp to make sure they got it.
I died three days later on a routine patrol. My platoon and I were ambushed. Those thirty seconds were the longest of my life, trying to fight a gun you couldn’t see. I decided that there was no way to survive this so I motioned for whoever was left to follow my of the road and into a paddy field. It was there I saw him, for a second we were looking into the other’s eyes. His narrow and sadistic, mean wide and fearful. The next thing I saw was a cloud of red form around my boots. It seemed that time had slowed before it stopped altogether. I could see my fellow soldiers being murdered. One by one they were picked of by snipers. I struggled to lift my rifle which seemed to way a ton now and began to return fire at these gooks. and by the time I had emptied a round I had three dead and the rest retreating.
Of the fifteen troops who accompanied me two survived. They rushed me to a medic who was stationed in he next village. All the while they were thanking me for my bravery. What bravery? What did I do but kill men who were fighting for what hey believed. What was the difference between us? It seemed like years until we got to the medic. The only problem was that it was years too late.


And please feel free to comment.

Sorry about the unalingment of the paragraphs butI can't use thre tab key.
*The racial comments in this piece are not representitive of my own opinion but rather an indication of this mans own predjudices.

Reputation Comments on this post:

Nice read. Keep trying!