Bedridden. Adult. Violence. Life in a Veteran’s hospital in the 60s. (standard:adventure, 2077 words)
Author: Oscar A Rat	Added: Jun 15 2020	Views/Reads: 1417/1038	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
About a patient in a military hospital in Japan during the war in Vietnam. The story in in first person POV and includes flashbacks.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


I lie quietly until the pills take effect, waiting for a welcome
surcease of a too active thought process. The pills bring only 
temporary peace. I'll float on a cloud, no pain, thoughts drifting, 
rarely coalescing into a viable pattern, drifting without rhyme or 
reason, without cohesion. . . . 

*** 

“I don't give a flying fuck,” SSgt. Jefferson said, staring into my
eyes, smooth-shaven face six-inches from mine, “you get your ass up on 
point. Thomas has been into that fucking weed again.  He's stoned and 
you have to take his turn.” 

“But sarge, he's not that high. It even helps to have a toke.  Your
senses are sharpened,” I argued. “You're new here. A lot of us do it 
before walking point,” I lied, not wanting the job. SSgt. Jefferson was 
a newbie, not yet acclimated to the way things were really done, still 
full of that rule book bullshit. 

Hell, us older guys knew how to keep that right glow, just enough of our
favorite drug or alcohol to function at peak, not enough to slow us 
down. He would learn, or die. But, for the moment he was both a newbie 
and in charge of the patrol. It's one thing to be right, another to be 
dead right. 

“Sarge, I only got two weeks left.  I'm too short to walk point.” A last
ditch attempt to get out of it. 

“And I'm new. I don't wanna get killed on my first patrol. I want
experienced men up there, and you're it.” He turned away to recheck 
Thomas's equipment. “Now get up there and go to work.” 

I noticed the eyes of some of my buddies as I parted concertina wire and
stepped outside our encampment. Even though it was to be a routine 
patrol, making sure the VC hadn't come up near our camp or planted 
anything during the night, I could see they were glad it was me and not 
them leaving the relative safety of the forward firebase. 

“Hey, Terry, watch your step, man,” a friend, Turner, advised as I
struggled down the embankment into Indian Country. Although they were 
trying to be silent, I could hear the rest of the patrol following in 
my footsteps.  The jungle smelled of mold and fresh grass. The first 
part was easy, as long as some asshole on our side hadn't planted a 
defensive mine or booby trap in the wrong place by our map. It had 
happened in the past. 

Eyes moving almost as rapidly as my heart valves, I walked down the berm
and into a cleared area outside the base. We kept it flat and empty of 
vegetation, plowed so that any footprints would show. I walked about 
twenty yards to the side before entering the plowed section. It 
wouldn't do to show any watching VC the exact point where I left base.  
Of course it could be changed the next night in any case, or we might 
be gone by then; you never knew. 

Came the moment of truth. With the others following at intervals, I
entered the jungle. There were paths, but we never, ever, used them. 
Paths were too easy to mine and ambush. Always shove or cut your way 
through. My job was to keep a very, very close eye on the ground in 
front of me as I wielded a machete to break a course through semi-thick 
vegetation. 

I pretty much ignored anything in the distance, above, or to either
side. Others behind me had those assignments, just as mine was the 
ground in front. I looked for anything suspicious, especially shiny, 
like a wire, or out of place, such as a candy bar – which had killed 
one guy once.  He bent down to pick it up, later finding himself picked 
up – one piece at a time. 

I also inspected branches and limbs I shoved or went past, since they
could also be booby trapped. Point man was the most thankless job in 
the army. One little mistake and “Boom.” 

I took no chances, on occasion using a bayonet to probe the ground,
moving my head back and forth rapidly to better use peripheral vision 
to catch slight movements or the shine of hidden metal. I was intensely 
aware that at any time I could feel the “click” through my boot that 
meant I was standing on a live land mine. 

Oh, how I wished I had a toke or two of weed under my belt to calm me. I
wondered how far back SSgt. Jefferson was? Maybe I could sneak a jolt 
of liquid speed from a small bottle under my shirt. The trouble was 
that speed would keep me going, but not ease the fear. It might even 
cause me to take unnecessary chances. 

Time stood still as I made my way slowly, picking up the pace as I
became more confident. I pretended I was alone, rabbit hunting back in 
Illinois and looking for tracks. In this case it was metallic or 
plastic tracks. 

“Hey, how's it going Terry?” 

I jerked at the sound of a loud voice behind me, froze in place, pulled
back to the real world. It was the new sergeant making his way in my 
direction while dodging around angry grunts, “I called a break, guess 
you didn't hear me.  Take it easy and relax.  I'll send Evens up to 
take your place for the next hour.” He was talking to me, for some 
reason wanting to seem comradely. 

Sweating, eyes still moving, taking time to get out of patrol mode, I
sat back on my heels, the ordeal over for a while at least, and lit a 
Camel, taking both shaking hands, Zippo lighter braced against a young 
tree. It was from a C-ration cigarette package; packed during and for a 
long-gone war, in 1944. It still tasted wonderful as I pulled smoke 
into my lungs. 

I sat back and looked, looked at the asshole stupid enough to yell on a
jungle patrol. Any VC within a klick would know we were there. 

“Man, this heat,” he continued, idly examining the trail ahead and to
the sides. “Pretty country though, better than New York City, where I 
grew up.” 

I wasn't paying much attention, sitting back while trying to let tension
flow from keyed-up flesh.  Lost in my own actions, I didn't notice the 
fucker. Not until I saw him bending past me, parting tall grass to peer 
through branches, reaching for something ahead of us, deep in the 
brush. 

“Hey Terry, how did this get he--.” 

The next thing I knew I was on my back in the shrubbery, eyes red with
blood, my own or Jefferson's? A few seconds later I heard a spat of 
gunfire. It seemed like hours or seconds later before I felt the weight 
of someone lying across my face as they bandaged my wounds. 

I had an impression of olive-colored military bandages crossing my
sight, and finally settling over both eyes. I could still smell, smell 
that sharp odor of fear and cordite from the explosive, permeating both 
clothing and flesh, mixed with the distinctive odor of jungle mud. 

There was no feeling except for the prick of a needle as I was injected
with morphine, no pain, only a dull feeling of being picked up. 

"Hold still, Terry," I heard Peters's voice and felt another prick on my
arm. "This'll help some, a little Horse to ride home to the World," as 
he gave me a shot of illegal heroin. 

My last impressions were the feel of cold metal through new tears in my
uniform as I landed on the cold metal floor of a chopper. . . . 

*** 

Now I lie like a vegetable except for one partial fist clasping a tiny
paper cup. Two eyes staring into space as a drugged mind struggles to 
attain that welcome blankness, the kind that erases time and space, 
prevents and ignores the pain of broken bones, dreams, hopes, loves -- 
and life itself. 

The End.


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