Vietnam

I push through the jungle thick with leaves, branches and other unmentionables. The small stream beside me looks appealing seeing as I have been wanting to quench my thirst since I awoke this morning. I reach down to the stream tempting myself, touching the luke warm water and wishing I could have it rushing down my throat, time seemed frozen in the moment.

                “Miller! What are you doing?” The Sargent exclaims from behind me.

                I jump back shooting my body into an upright position and letting the water I had cupped in my hands splash down sinking into the already moist ground.

                “I uh… I was…” losing all train of thought my eyes flick to the water once again entranced by its calming noises and gentle flow.

                “Are you asking for a death sentence, Miller? Because if you are I can give you a much swifter one that that you would’ve caught from that god awful water.” He yelled at me, words I once would have flinched at now got no reaction from my stoic posture.

                “No sir.” I quickly replied internally scolding myself for any weakness being shown.

                Strong, unmoving, unforgiving, never flinching. All these things impounded into my head, all these things I was expected to be.

                “Well then get a move on, the water ain’t sanitary around these parts.” He gave me a knowing look, his southern drawl dipping low in his speech, one that implied he had to been enthralled by the devilish water.

                Sargent Stark turned around and reentered the mass of men marching by. These men that had soon become like a tight knit family to me rather than a rag tag team assembled at will. Time started again for me as I realized no one was going to take any notice to me. I picked up my feet covered in heavy boots and drenched in mud, allowing my mind to reel in its thoughts. You did what you had to do to get back home, to your kids and wife or maybe a pretty lady that was praying you’d come back with your mind intact. Though seeing the things we saw I doubt that happened very often.

                I submerged myself into the group of men staying as far away from the tantalizing river as I could manage. We were looking for underground tunnels, a tactic of war the Vietnamese had kept to their advantage. These rat tunnels were hard to find and dangerous to enter. Plagued with traps and dark, withdrawn from day light, there were no guarantees you would come out alive. Although we searched for them it was no secret that we hoped we wouldn’t find one. These rat tunnels that were preventing us from winning the war did put a damper on American pride, but nothing could settle a bigger one down than death itself.

                I stumbled over a tree root cursing as I caught myself. I don’t really know what I was expecting when I joined the military. Maybe a closer family that the one I was lacking at home, or a suicide wish I had yet to discover. Possibly I was looking for adventure, a new beginning, or a reason to travel. What I wouldn’t give to have the safety of a boring nine to five job now…

                A loud earth shattering boom echoed throughout the jungle, and closely similar to a domino effect, men surged to the ground as everything fell eerily silent. My heart thundered in my chest fogging my hearing with its loud thumping. I reached a hand up to wipe the mud that had become splattered across my face, though I doubt it helped clean my appearance much at all.

                We waited for a good two minutes before the Sargent yelled one command. “Up!” We all followed orders and began trudging forward deeper into the mysterious foliage. From what I could tell we were heading toward the source of the noise, something that was not uncommon or shocking. My heart had slowed knowing that usually wherever a bomb had gone off nothing but dust and guts usually remained and the possibility of more explosives of course, that thought once again brought my heart back pounding in my ears.

                It took us a good half hour to get to the so called “scene of the crime.” A rat tunnel hole had been uncovered below us and the remains of a body and its blood splattered around the jungle coating once dazzling green leaves and homely brown roots with its dark red stain. The deep dark hole remained untouched almost mocking us and others at the attempt to reach it. I stared at the gruesome scene knowing it was just one more that would be imprinted into our minds forever. I let out a sigh that seemed to turn into a collective one as my fellow soldiers realized it would be another nightmare to plague their sleep, as it would mine. There was no telling if the man, much too far gone to identify was Vietnamese or an American soldier. One thing was for sure though, there was a rat tunnel in front of us, and somebody was going to have to go down it, rigged or not there could be valuable information somewhere in that line of tunnels. Information we wished didn’t require anyone to be slowly placed in that tunnel crowded by dirt clad walls and tapered with booby trapped floors.

                We all looked at each other, knowing that nobody wanted to force anyone down the hole, but nobody wanted to volunteer their life for it either. My eyes grazed over the men I had begun to call family, men with bags under their eyes and scruff covering their faces, men who missed the comfort a warm bed would bring. All these men who would have risked their lives for me and would probably again, I figured I’d do them a solid.

                “I’ll do it.”