drag him back. But I knew he was finished, It was like trying to lift a house.
Carmody keeps saying, over and over, “Why did he yell, why the fuck did he yell. Fuckin? stream was
only three feet deep.”
But it was dark and everything had gone wrong and Jesse couldn?t swim. Hell, I don?t know why I?m
apologizing for old Hatch, look what it cost him.
The 198th day: The lieutenant?s beginning to act weird. It started a couple of weeks ago when we
lost Jesse Hatch. It?s like he has a hard time making up his mind about anything.
Last night I go by his hooch and I say, “C?mon, Lieutenant, let?s have a beer.” And he just sits there,
looking at me, and then he says, “Let me think about it.” Think about having a beer?
Today he says, “My luck?s going bad. I shouldn?t have lost Flagler and Hatch.”
“You can?t blame yourself,” I say to him.
“Who?m I going to blame, Nixon?” he says, only he says it with bitterness. He?s lost his sense of
humor, too.
The 215th day: We got separated from our outfit and we were two days out in the boonies. We come
up on this handful of gooks. Ten of them, maybe. We just break through some brush and there they
are, twenty feet away plus change.
Everybody goes to the deck but the lieutenant. I don?t know what happened. He just pulls a short
circuit and stands there. This one VC has his AK-47 over his shoulder, he rolls backward and gets
one burst off. Carmody takes three hits. He?s lying there, a few feet away from me, jerking real hard
in the dirt.
It?s the shortest firefight lever saw. It?s over in about ten seconds. Everybody is shooting at once. We
are on top of these people and Carmody is the only one gets hit. One of the gooks jumps in the river
and Gunner just goes right in after him, takes him out with his K-bar. Just keeps stabbing him until
he?s too tired to stab anymore.
I take the lieutenant in my arms and hold him as tight as I can and keep telling him it?s going to be all
right. I hold him that way until he stops shaking and I feel him go stiff on me.
it doesn?t seem possible. A month to go, that?s all he had. I don?t know why I thought the lieutenant
