He cradled the man’s head in his lap. A shard of the wounded’s cracked helmet drew blood from his upper thigh as a blast went off close enough to leave his ears ringing, pelting him and the body he clung to with clods of dirt matted with grass. He stared around fearfully, praying they would be found and hoping that they wouldn’t. He just wanted the sound of detonation to stop, despite the rhythmic drone of heavy artillery. The whir of a UH-1 Huey gave an orchestrated quality to gunfire, synchronizing to the lull of war.
“We’re gonna be OK,” he said. The insane words tasted sweet on his tongue. “After this is over, we’ll hit up the club back on base. Hell, the officers better take us to their club.”
The man’s head lolled to the side as he seemed to look up at his comforter, driving the point of the helmet deeper into his thigh. The last of his life poured from the groan of his parted lips, mixing with the blood-soaked fatigues cushioning his cheek. He could feel the warmth of the soldier’s last bloody breath mixing with his pulsing flesh. It was a pulse that matched the pounding in his ears, dulling his surroundings. From far off he heard a shout followed by a staccato of orders in a language he did not know.
A surge of adrenaline lent him the strength to throw himself protectively over his dead charge – And the helmet dug deeper still. “I wanna go back to the barracks…I wanna go back to the barracks…” Over and over his voice played the same line into a pitch of hysteria.
Something whizzed over his ducked head and exploded in the ground, covering them in soot-stained soil. His instinctive reflex shot out for his M16 lost in the explosion which gave way to his circumstance. Muscles tensed and cramped as his leg embraced the sharp pain like the naïve that received a hard slap from its lover. He could feel the blood rising to the surface of his upper leg, pouring out in a steady stream. And though the day was hot, he shuddered with a chill lodged in the base of his spine.
His blue lips were pressed tight together as he tried to see the exact moment when he had been hit, yet he hadn’t been struck by enemy fire. ‘By what,’ he thought as he struggled to sit up. His neck felt weak under the weight of his skull and snapped back to stare blankly at a cloudless sky. His jaw quivered as tears stung his eyes while a surge of anger gave him a numb sense of strength. “Fuck you, God! Fuck you!” – And the head of the deceased slipped out of the helmet embedded in his flesh, its painted red hair caressing his fatigued thigh, and coming to rest on the earth.
The foreign voices faded as they drew closer. He continued to stare, unblinking through the settling of another bomb explosion. The enemy approached in a determined stride and yanked his head back further. A callous blade sliced through the pale flesh of his neck as if it were butter, but he wasn’t there. His offered comfort to another troop had given him mercy as he voiced his ignorance to an uncaring deity.
