Brentjp99 (completed)
War child
When he closed his eyes, he could still see her face; her smile still haunted him in the darkness behind lids closed tight against the world.
Her name was Tran. Little girl. She had always come in with the others. The older ones. Walking the long and muddy road into the firebase. Past the barbed wire of the perimeter, the sentries with their M16's. The women had done their washing, erasing the grime from green fatigues, never smiling.
She had smiled though. The child running little errands. Bringing them sweet tea, and carting off their laundry. Coyly begging for sweets. He remembered her smile. Tiny teeth stained brown from chewing Betel nut, dirt on her face, eyes like deep, dark pools. Jet-black hair hanging straight and shining, framing her pretty, round and ruddy cheeks. She had smiled for them, lighting her still-innocent, open, grimy little face. Lighting their dusty, olive-drab world. They guessed her age at around 12, but thinking back on it, she had probably been more like seven or eight. War child.
The humidity dripped fat, languid drops of water from the canvas and palm-frond camouflage coverings of the bunker where they hung out, exhausted from the patrol, just before nightfall. A gentle 'pat' sound into the red mud beside green ammo crates. Then darkness would claim it's inevitable supremacy; darkness into which they deeply feared to venture.
They did not own the night; the night belonged to Charlie. And the night was long.
For countless and uneventful weeks they would walk the jungle paths, hearing the squawk and chatter of birds, the rustle of leaves in the canopy and the crunch and slop of their own footfalls through muddy undergrowth. And the heave of their own nervous breathing as they kept tight in formation, pointman out front, treading as nervously as long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs: "Lima Papa niner-zero, this is Whisky Tango two Actual, sector seven clear, over", and the scratchy-tin radio response from the LT at the forward OP: "Roger WT-2, copy, proceed." Day after goddamn monsoon-drenched day.
At the end of each, they'd return to lounge nervously in the dust back at base, clean weapons and drink shitty coffee or warm beer. If they were lucky to have had it brought in with the weekly Huey dump. The bird was always welcome: in the wake of it's clattering blades it brought letters, chow, ammo, and hope (hope that there was still a world out there). Not the World (that was back home; a million miles away), but just a world more normal than this. Dakto, Da Nang, Hanoi, Saigon. They'd shoot the shit, play their Hendrix tapes and try to 'Relax'. Until the next one: another day, another patrol. Another shit-your-pants fuckin' stroll in the bush. Locked and loaded.
But back at base, before the bloated orange orb of the sun dipped into the humid-haze horizon shimmer, there was always the cheerful little smile that would greet them. The village-child, with the dark pool eyes. And hers was the innocence that remained in this torn, stained land.
LRRP detail. The long range patrol. Dreaded orders. Perhaps a follow-up after an arc-light mission. Such devastation could not possibly leave anything alive? But amazingly, it always did. Days and nights deep in jungle's realm. Dirty fingernails, sweat-salt encrusted webbing, fear-dilated pupils in paint-smeared eyes. Tight bellies never warmed by the C-rations they ate when night fell; no bunker, no base, no refuge but the vigilance of their own loose perimeter sentry duty. They'd alternate watch, a whisper in the ear their awakening, "you're up... 0400... two hours 'till dawn." Quivering, sweating, mosquito tormented nights in which every noise was a nightmare come to kill. After four days, nerves frayed like taught cords, rat-ass-sleep-deprived jumpy with fingers clenched on black triggers slick with perspiration.
On the fifth day, they reached a village. A little palm-frond roof covering one stilted hooch. No bird sounds. No jungle noise at all. All wrong. Tension like a drum-drawn canvas over the nerves of the patrol. The hiss and beat of blood in their veins screaming in their ears.
And as he'd kicked open the door, they saw only the rifle barrel pointing out, the trip-wire on the threshold. Slow motion then, as in a dream, he felt the grenades tumbling past, flung by his squad into the hut. And as the sarge tore him to one side, out of the blast radius, just before the white-hot flash of noise and flame torched the inside of the hooch and it's occupants, roaring it's death destruction, he saw one more thing.
He saw a small, round face, jet black hair framing eyes like dark pools, a little grime-stained face, and pretty grin. Looking at him.
Years after, when he closed his eyes, he could still see her face; her smile still haunted him in the darkness behind lids closed tight against the world.
"Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
yellow moon on the rise.
Big birds flying across the sky,
thowing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us
helpless, helpless, helpless..."
- Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - 1970.
War child
When he closed his eyes, he could still see her face; her smile still haunted him in the darkness behind lids closed tight against the world.
Her name was Tran. Little girl. She had always come in with the others. The older ones. Walking the long and muddy road into the firebase. Past the barbed wire of the perimeter, the sentries with their M16's. The women had done their washing, erasing the grime from green fatigues, never smiling.
She had smiled though. The child running little errands. Bringing them sweet tea, and carting off their laundry. Coyly begging for sweets. He remembered her smile. Tiny teeth stained brown from chewing Betel nut, dirt on her face, eyes like deep, dark pools. Jet-black hair hanging straight and shining, framing her pretty, round and ruddy cheeks. She had smiled for them, lighting her still-innocent, open, grimy little face. Lighting their dusty, olive-drab world. They guessed her age at around 12, but thinking back on it, she had probably been more like seven or eight. War child.
The humidity dripped fat, languid drops of water from the canvas and palm-frond camouflage coverings of the bunker where they hung out, exhausted from the patrol, just before nightfall. A gentle 'pat' sound into the red mud beside green ammo crates. Then darkness would claim it's inevitable supremacy; darkness into which they deeply feared to venture.
They did not own the night; the night belonged to Charlie. And the night was long.
For countless and uneventful weeks they would walk the jungle paths, hearing the squawk and chatter of birds, the rustle of leaves in the canopy and the crunch and slop of their own footfalls through muddy undergrowth. And the heave of their own nervous breathing as they kept tight in formation, pointman out front, treading as nervously as long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs: "Lima Papa niner-zero, this is Whisky Tango two Actual, sector seven clear, over", and the scratchy-tin radio response from the LT at the forward OP: "Roger WT-2, copy, proceed." Day after goddamn monsoon-drenched day.
At the end of each, they'd return to lounge nervously in the dust back at base, clean weapons and drink shitty coffee or warm beer. If they were lucky to have had it brought in with the weekly Huey dump. The bird was always welcome: in the wake of it's clattering blades it brought letters, chow, ammo, and hope (hope that there was still a world out there). Not the World (that was back home; a million miles away), but just a world more normal than this. Dakto, Da Nang, Hanoi, Saigon. They'd shoot the shit, play their Hendrix tapes and try to 'Relax'. Until the next one: another day, another patrol. Another shit-your-pants fuckin' stroll in the bush. Locked and loaded.
But back at base, before the bloated orange orb of the sun dipped into the humid-haze horizon shimmer, there was always the cheerful little smile that would greet them. The village-child, with the dark pool eyes. And hers was the innocence that remained in this torn, stained land.
LRRP detail. The long range patrol. Dreaded orders. Perhaps a follow-up after an arc-light mission. Such devastation could not possibly leave anything alive? But amazingly, it always did. Days and nights deep in jungle's realm. Dirty fingernails, sweat-salt encrusted webbing, fear-dilated pupils in paint-smeared eyes. Tight bellies never warmed by the C-rations they ate when night fell; no bunker, no base, no refuge but the vigilance of their own loose perimeter sentry duty. They'd alternate watch, a whisper in the ear their awakening, "you're up... 0400... two hours 'till dawn." Quivering, sweating, mosquito tormented nights in which every noise was a nightmare come to kill. After four days, nerves frayed like taught cords, rat-ass-sleep-deprived jumpy with fingers clenched on black triggers slick with perspiration.
On the fifth day, they reached a village. A little palm-frond roof covering one stilted hooch. No bird sounds. No jungle noise at all. All wrong. Tension like a drum-drawn canvas over the nerves of the patrol. The hiss and beat of blood in their veins screaming in their ears.
And as he'd kicked open the door, they saw only the rifle barrel pointing out, the trip-wire on the threshold. Slow motion then, as in a dream, he felt the grenades tumbling past, flung by his squad into the hut. And as the sarge tore him to one side, out of the blast radius, just before the white-hot flash of noise and flame torched the inside of the hooch and it's occupants, roaring it's death destruction, he saw one more thing.
He saw a small, round face, jet black hair framing eyes like dark pools, a little grime-stained face, and pretty grin. Looking at him.
Years after, when he closed his eyes, he could still see her face; her smile still haunted him in the darkness behind lids closed tight against the world.
"Blue, blue windows behind the stars,
yellow moon on the rise.
Big birds flying across the sky,
thowing shadows on our eyes.
Leave us
helpless, helpless, helpless..."
- Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young - 1970.