Isolation & Fear (Damned of the 2/19th Book Seven)

Woken from Dreams

Room 319
Intensive Care Unit
Wurzburg Army Medical Center
Wurzburg Army Post
West Germany
07 November, 1987
1420 Hours

Pain woke me again.

And the sounds.

The hissing of the respirator. The beeping of the heart monitor. One to keep me alive, the other to prove I was alive.

"She should be waking up shortly," a woman's voice said. "She's still on the ventilator, so she won't be able to speak. I'll leave you alone."

"I'll be outside the room," A man said.

I didn't recognize either of them. The fog was receding from my brain, and I could feel the pain in my chest, mouth, and the back of my throat. Air was still hissing, and I could hear the machines beeping and hissing as air was pushed into my chest. I could feel the discomfort of the catheter someone had put in me, but it was a dim thing, like the pain.

The door to the room closed and I felt a presence come near me.

oh no, please, not him, please, anything but him...

I heard a chair pulled next to the bed, then a large, heavy, callused hand rested on my forehead.

"Lord God," the voice rumbled.

oh god, please no, not him...

"Guard and protect this woman, let her take comfort in your presence and love," the voice continued, "Give her the strength to recover from her injuries, and support and guide her in her time of need. Amen."

The hand lifted from my head, leaving behind warmth, and the chair scraped.

"Miss Nagle," CSM Tiernan Stillwater rumbled.

...I didn't have a choice, I had to leave, please don't hate me...

"After World War Two I stayed in the military. I found that I was good at being a soldier, good at leading men, and I enjoyed being a soldier," he kept speaking. "Many men were just glad to go home, to put the fighting and the bloodshed behind them. Not me, I had found my niche in life, found what I was good at and what I enjoyed."

I wondered where he was going. Of course, he was good at it.

"In 1950 I was sent to South Korea, and within a short span I was involved in the fighting at Osan, with Task Force Smith. We were outnumbered, we had insufficient anti-tank weaponry to defend ourselves from the Chinese and Russian tanks. Not too long after I found myself visiting a cousin with the Marine Corps up at a little place called Chosin, and all hell broke loose," He rumbled, "Eventually, I went home. The Korean War was over."

His voice was growing darker, and part of me quailed away from what he was going to say.

...I couldn't stay. I couldn't do it. I'm sorry...

"I had fought World War Two and Korea, on the ground, bloody boot step by bloody boot step. I'd fired machineguns till the barrels melted, charged tanks with an empty rife, and had killed men with a broken bayonet," His voice made goosebumps rise up on my skin.

...we killed those children, our brothers and sisters, in the dark and cold, screaming our war cries. I can't do that again, I just can't...

"I was tired. I was still a young man. Born in the 1920's, not even yet thirty, I'd joined the military at 15 because I stood six feet tall and was mistaken for an adult male in December of 1941," He said, and his voice changed, "By 1953 I was exhausted. I was tired of killing men. When I closed my eyes I could still see the things I had done, see the things that had happened. My dreams were terrible things.