| When I Think or Dream
of the Vietnam War...
That Still Voice
... |
The old timer was showing his 11 months in country laughing in the last rank. The Flight Chief getting angry because the old timer isn't properly freaked out of his mind like the rest of them. If the kid TSgt only knew. Finish guardmount got the Sector PSAT team tonight, two Thai guards and me. Get the coffee and ice water make the first run, already the calls of movement here, sensors going off there. The pulling up to one of the bunkers with a really cherry FNG--I think he been there less than two weeks. Listening to him talk about dying, just knowing he was dead, married with a kid back in the world. Trying to calm him down settle him down get him back on the business. Hearing those GD words to this moment, "Mark, please don't let me die alone." I hear that voice, the kind where you wanted Daddy to take away the fear and the pain. I can't remember the face or that guy's name but those words have haunted me to this day. I don't know why, but it does. We never got it that night which makes this story a little anti-climatic. But I remember that night and that voice still ... "Mark, please don't let me die alone." |