was invincible. You?d think I?d know better after six months out here.
The 254th day: It?s almost six weeks since Carmody took it. I wish the hell I would have time to thank
the lieutenant. If he had just come around for a minute or two. Shit, you just take too much for granted
out here.
I?ve been acting squad leader ever since. They made me a sergeant. Doe, Gunner, me, we?re the only
old-timers left. Jordan beat the rap and rotated back to the World. The night before he left we got him
so drunk, shit, he was out cold. So we tie him to the back of this PT-boat and drag him back up to the
base, which is about eight or nine kliks. He almost drowned. By the time we got to the base, he was
sober. So we got him drunk all over again. He was a wreck when he got on the chopper to Cam Ranh.
I?ll bet he?s still got a hangover. Something to remember us by.
Can you beat that, six months and I?m an old-timer. I never even told the lieutenant I liked him.
The 268th day: I got called down to Dau Tieng today, which is division HQ, and I talked with this
captain who seems to run the whole show in this sector. He tells rue I?m recommended for a Silver
Star for this thing up at Hi Pien. It was a rescue mission and I guess I looked pretty good that day.
He asks me how I feel about the war. Can you imagine? How does anybody feel about the war, for
Christ sakes.
“I?ve had better times,” I said. “Like the time I had my appendix out.”
The captain has real dark eyes, like he needs sleep and could use a week or two in the sun, and he got
a kick out of that.
“I mean, how do you feel about the war politically,” he says.
“I don?t know about that,” I say to him. “I?m not interested in political bullshit. I?m here because I
was sent here. I don?t even know what the hell we?re doing over here, Captain. Right now it looks like
all we?re doing is getting our ass kicked.”
“Does that concern you? I mean, that we seem to be getting our ass whipped?”
“You some kind of shrink or something?” I ask him.
He laughs again and says no, he?s not a shrink.
So I say to him, “Nobody?s over here to lose.”
Then he asks me how old I am and I tell him I?m twenty-one and he says to me, “You?re a damn good
