by Brown, TW
A shadow dimmed the little bit of light seeping through his slitted eyelids and announced the arrival of the enemy. He heard the whispering voices but could not tell how many there were. The water sloshed and then there was a split second of silence before the sound of a bayonet being plunged into a body reached his ears. It was quickly followed by evil tittering and another stabbing sound. One of them was sticking Jake’s decimated corpse.
Those bastards are gonna pay, Joel vowed, his hands clenching the shovel handle tightly in anticipation.
He allowed his eyelids to open just the slightest fraction. He could see three dark figures crowded around the body of his friend. He and Jake had enlisted together. It had been Joel who convinced his best friend since grade school that they would be fine if they joined the army.
“We’ll be able to have each other’s backs,” Joel said as Jake signed his enlistment papers.
Now, Jake was being turned into a human pincushion. Joel wanted to scream. He wanted to roar a challenge to the inhuman bastards defiling the corpse of his best friend. But he knew better. His advantage would be in having the element of surprise. They would come over to him expecting just another dead body, and he would come at them with everything he had left.
Adrenaline was a precious commodity in the jungle. If you didn’t learn to control it, you used it all up and then crashed with a fight still raging around you. That was a sure-fire way to get a ticket home in a metal box…if there was anything left to send home.
Joel managed to keep his breathing very low and slow. He barely caused a ripple on the water’s surface as he exhaled. The water was muddy, but if it had been crystal clear, there would be plenty of blood to indicate that he’d been hurt badly.
Sploosh. Squelch.
They were coming. He could hear their feet pulling free of the thick muck of the paddy. Each time a foot broke the surface of the water. He could hear the slightest splash. The untrained ear would miss it. Hell, eight months ago, he wouldn’t have noticed a thing. Charlie was quiet. He was in his environment.
The dark stalk of a leg stopped right beside his head. He felt a foot nudge him. Then another set of legs arrived beside the first and he heard whispering in the rapid tongue of the VC.
He tensed his body and did a quick mental review of his attack. He knew that it was likely he would die here and now, but that was preferable to being either taken prisoner or being stabbed to death as he did nothing to try and save his own ass.
“God helps those that help themselves.” If his mom said it once, she’d said it a thousand times during his childhood.
His parents grew up during the Great Depression. They’d known hunger and discomfort on a level that he could not begin to imagine. But they’d both made it through to the other side and given Joel a loving home. He hadn’t been the richest kid on the block, but he had never known a day of want. Both of his parents worked hard as providers in a time when women were expected to stay home and raise their children.
They had instilled their work ethic in him at an early age. They were not shy about a butt whipping if he didn’t do as he was told. Eventually, he didn’t need to be told. He knew what needed to be done, and if he saw something that wasn’t tasked to him but needed doing, he did that as well.
He learned how to play chess at age four from his mom. He didn’t win his first game until he was seventeen. Over the years, he learned how to plan. He learned how to look five, ten, even twenty steps ahead and take in all the variables that might arise to knock him off track.
It was that part of his mind that went through the calculations of what needed to happen to give Joel even the slightest chance of coming away from this alive. It was that part of his mind that showed him the likelihood that he was already in his grave.
Clearing his mind of everything, Joel acted. Planting one hand firmly in the muck, he shoved himself over and into the legs of the enemy still foolishly engaged in conversation over what they had mistakenly assumed to be just another dead American soldier.
His body registered a spike of pain in his side, but he compartmentalized it and continued his attempt at overtaking the surprised VC regulars. From his back, he whipped his legs like the tail of a scorpion and took the second man out at the ankles.
Pushing himself to his feet, Joel emerged from the muck of the rice paddy like a ferocious animal. The roar that accompanied him only added to the effect. Lashing out with his shovel, he caught the one VC still on his knees and making the fastest recovery of the two in the side of the neck. There was a split second where he almost thought he’d missed…until the blade of the shovel struck bone.
Bringing one foot up, he planted it in the chest of his first victim and yanked the shovel free. Something hot sprayed his face, and for a moment, Joel thought this an odd place for a warm shower until the coppery taste filled his mouth, still open from that ferocious roar that had ebbed to a snarl by this point.
He didn’t need to look close to know his first target was dead, even if his brain hadn’t received the message quite yet. He oriented on the second soldier and raised the shovel over his head, preparing for a downward strike that would hopefully cleave the head in half from crown to chin.
Joel paused, arms above his head. Charlie was looking up at him. His black eyes glittered with hatred that came through clearly even in the minimal light provided by a shrouded moon. What did not show in the man’s face was fear. He was about to be executed. He had no way out, and Joel held all the cards.
He tightened his grip on the shovel and, just as he gave the slightest nod acknowledging Charlie’s bravery, he brought the shovel down. The impact stung his hands and sent hot pain all the way up his arms to his shoulders.
He stepped back, letting go of the shovel as he did. It was buried almost to the top of the flattened nose of Charlie. Twin rivulets of blood as black as his enemy’s eyes ran down each side of the crease chopped into the man’s head. Even as the light of life left them, that look of bitter hate remained.
And just that fast, Joel shut down the adrenaline raging through his body and collapsed to his knees. A hiss and crackle sounded from nearby. He crawled in the direction of the sound and discovered what was left of Travis “Rabbit” Alvarez, the platoon’s radio operator. The crackle and hiss was coming from the large piece of gear on his back.
“…inbound…two minutes until…–ding just south of checkpoint…”
There was a pop, and then the smell of fried electrical components wafted to Joel’s nostrils. The radio was dead. But, if he heard that garbled transmission correctly, then a helo was coming in and would be touching down just south of the established checkpoint.
He steadied his breathing and listened for the telltale ‘whump-whump’ of the incoming Huey. It didn’t take long for the sound of salvation to reach his ears. He oriented on the source and began forcing his body through the muck. As he moved, he plucked the dog tags from all the men he passed. While there would be nothing he could do for the bodies, he could damn sure make certain that each was accounted for.
Joel felt the wind from the rotors as he entered the clearing. He threw his hands up in the air, waving them back and forth. He saw two men emerge from the open bay door and approach him in a crouch.
“How many?” one of the men yelled above the sounds of the Huey’s rotors.
Suddenly finding his throat clenched tight with the emotion of everything that had just happened, all he could do was point at his own chest. In moments, he was aboard the helicopter. He felt his stomach tighten as the bonds of gravity were broken and he was sent hurtling skyward.
Joel closed his eyes and barely felt the swipe on his right arm followed by the prick of a needle. The sounds of the helicopter were interrupted a few times by the chatter of a machine gun, but even that grew distant as Joel slipped from consciousness.
He awoke in a sterile-looking room that felt like a foreign world after the past several months he’d spent in the shit. Glancing each way, he saw
men with an assortment of bandages applied to their bodies. Some were obviously missing limbs. He did a quick inventory and breathed a sigh of relief when he counted both arms and legs still intact. That action was enough to send a burst of pain from his right side where thick bandages were taped to his body under the flimsy piece of material that was supposed to count as a patient’s gown.
“And how are we feeling?” a voice from his left pulled his attention from a man missing both legs right around the knees who was struggling back into his bed from a wheelchair.
Joel looked up to see a man dressed in khakis with a pair of silver bars on his collar standing beside his bed with a clipboard. “Not sure about you, but I feel like crap.”
The corner of the doctor’s mouth twitched up in a slight smile. “You suffered a collapsed lung and a few cracked ribs, but everything seems to be mending fine.”
“When do I go back?” Joel asked, finding it odd that he was suddenly longing for the sounds and smells of the field. There was something foreign and uncomfortable about the sterile smells of the hospital ward.
“Next week,” the doctor said, his eyes scanning the clip board. He looked up and his expression changed. “Oh…you mean back to your platoon? No, you won’t be rejoining them. You are going stateside. You couldn’t possibly return to the field anytime soon with your injuries. It is likely that you are finished here, son.”
The words all seemed strange in his ears as Joel listened to the doctor tell him his time in Vietnam was over. He would be flown back to the States and then probably be put on a bus for home.
“Next week?” Joel heard the word come out of his mouth, but it felt strange and the voice did not sound like him at all.
“Yes, you will be given your medal this evening by the hospital commander and, first thing Monday, you will be taken by bus to the airfield where you will be processed and assigned a transport flight.”
The doctor continued to speak, but Joel tuned him out. He couldn’t believe that he was going home. It felt strange knowing that this would all end so suddenly.
“Also, what would you like us to do with these?” The doctor’s voice pierced his mind and he looked up to see a small baggie containing the dog tags he’d collected.
Joel reached out and took the baggie. “I’ll take care of them.”
He waited for the doctor to protest, but the man simply shrugged his shoulders. Apparently they were done because he moved on to the next bed and began speaking to its occupant.
The next few days were a blur. Joel barely recalled being rolled out to the hallway with a few other members of his ward. Some full-bird arrived, said words about honor and heroism, and then pinned Purple Hearts on the breasts of the wounded. A smattering of applause came from the nurses gathered, and then it was over.
Somewhere along the line, Joel was brought to a bus and transported to an airfield. He was given a series of papers to sign, and then he was escorted on board. There was one transfer, and then the next thing he knew, a voice was announcing that they had reached their destination, finishing with, “Welcome home, men!”
Joel looked out the window and saw a band, a few officers in pressed uniforms, and a small pack of anxious wives, parents, and children awaiting them. He knew there would be nobody to collect him so he didn’t linger on that crowd. The plane came to a stop and a set of stairs were rolled up. Joel was in the third row, but kept his seat until the last man had shuffled past. Getting to his feet, he winced slightly at the discomfort and then made his way to the exit. He emerged into the comparatively dry heat of Washington State and the McChord Air Force Base and was directed to the bus that would take him to Fort Lewis where he would sign his last papers and be processed out.
As he boarded the bus with the handful of other soldiers that didn’t have family waiting their arrival and return to “The World”, Joel could see the gate where they would exit. Standing just outside the fence was another group of civilians.
These weren’t anxious friends and family. His eyes were sharp, and even at this distance, he could see the long hair and loose clothing common for what was commonly referred to as members of the “hippie” culture. His eyes scanned them and a ball of anger began to smolder in his belly. He’d heard stories of these people and how they’d treated some of his other brothers-in-arms who’d been sent home. This group held signs that said things like “Baby Killers!” and “Murderers not Welcome!” and “Get Out of Vietnam!” in hasty scrawl.
Time swirled in the chaos of the day’s events, but by that evening, Joel was checked in to his hotel room where he would stay the night before hopping a plane home to Las Vegas, Nevada. His family lived just outside of town in a small trailer park development. He considered for perhaps the thousandth time whether he should give them a call and let them know he was coming home.
The last thing he wanted was a fuss. Joel simply wanted to walk through the door, hug his mom and start back with the simple everyday things he’d known growing up. The next day, he caught a shuttle that took him to the airport. He was told that it would be best if he wore civilian clothes instead of his uniform. Joel shrugged and decided that it didn’t really matter what he wore and slipped into a pair of jeans, still stiff from having never been washed or worn, along with a black tee shirt. The one thing he did not change were his boots. They made him feel safe and somehow still in touch with all the brothers he was leaving behind. Besides, he figured, who would care what he wore once he reached Las Vegas.
Living outside of Las Vegas was very different from living in it. That was something nobody he ever met could understand. When he would say where he was from, people would make the most insane assumptions. They were shocked when he admitted to never touching a set of dice except for when he played Monopoly, and playing cards were nothing more than noisemakers in the spokes of his bicycle when he was a young boy.
As the shuttle exited the base, it passed another pack of sign-toting hippies. Only, this bunch was armed…so to speak. A hail storm of tomatoes and eggs pelted the windows of the small Army shuttle bus. Joel stared out the window at the angry faces and wondered what these people would do if the bus stopped and he and the rest of the grim-faced occupants emerged to confront them. He’d shove their “Make Love Not War” signs someplace very painful.
At last the crowd vanished around a corner, the only proof of their existence displayed in the slurry of goo dripping down the windows. Joel sat back and watched the miles tick past. He looked at the distant Seattle skyline and wondered how anybody could live like that with that many people crowded in so close.
Eventually he was in the air once more and on his way home…his real home. When his plane landed, he grabbed his bag and made his way through the terminal and out to where a line of taxi cabs waited for the fools about to be parted from their money.
“Where to, buddy?” the man asked as he turned on the meter.
Joel gave him the address and sat back. As soon as he’d revealed that his destination was not one of the casinos or surrounding hotels, the cabbie’s demeanor changed from false cheer to something more relaxed and…real?
“How long you been back?” the man said as they put the false exteriors and electric billboards that would soon light up the night behind them.
“Today,” Joel replied. “How’d you know?”
“Not many kids your age these days with haircuts like that,” the cabbie said, his eyes catching Joel’s in the rearview mirror. Joel smiled.
They drove on in silence for a while until the cabbie spoke again. “You kids shouldn’t be coming home to the sort of bullshit you’re getting. Wasn’t that way when we came back.”
“Where’d you come back from?” Joel asked, trying to gauge the age of the man behind the wheel.
“The Pacific.”
“World War Two?”
“Yep.”
Joel let that sink in. His uncle had shared some stories about the landing of Normandy. Most of them were so incredible that Joel had wri
tten them off as over-exaggeration and a few too many shots of bourbon…until he’d seen the things of nightmares for himself.
“What branch?” Joel asked.
“Marines.”
“Damn,” Joel breathed. “I bet you saw plenty of terrible things.”
“One hour on Iwo would be enough to scare the drugs right outta them hippie bastards,” the old cabbie snorted. “Yeah,” his tone sobered, “I saw plenty.”
Once more silence fell. The minds of both men drifted to a host of unpleasant things that lurked in the darker corners of their minds. At last, the cab came to a stop in front of a green and white trailer home with a faded white picket fence marking the border of its tiny lot.
Joel got out of the cab, grabbed his bag and then leaned down at the driver’s window as he fished his wallet from his pocket.
“The ride’s on me, kid,” the cabbie said with a wave of his hand. “Call it a welcome home gift.”
“Thanks.” Joel gave a nod of his head.
“And thank you for serving.” The cab driver gave a nod and then drove off.
Joel watched the taxi depart and then turned to the trailer where his parents lived. Maybe he’d been away too long, but something seemed different. He couldn’t place it right away and started up the narrow stone path that meandered up to the steps leading to the front patio.
As he reached the top step, he finally realized the first thing that was different. His parents kept a pair of lawn chairs on the porch. They liked to come out in the evening and just listen to the birds as the sun set and everything cooled. The chairs were gone. In fact, the porch was bare. His mother was always trying to grow some flower or another despite her obvious lack of a green thumb.
He reached the door and his eyes drifted to the window just to his left. The living room still had the furniture, but that was it. All the pictures on the walls were gone. The small television on the rolling table that was wheeled around so that his dad could see it from the dinner table was also missing.