Tues, March 18th, 1966

Having started my tour in January, I have another nine months to survive before I get to go home.

The days blur together after a while. Sarge says the military life is long periods of boredom, punctuated by brief periods of terror.

The terror appears and recedes unpredictably. Sometimes there can be a week between attacks, and at other times the VC shell the camp so regularly you could set your watch by it.

The veterans tell me that after a while, you see death so often you stop fearing it. I wish that were the case for me. The more I see of death, the more the random, capricious nature of it scares me.

--

We left the forward operating base just before dawn. Another morning, another patrol. I felt jealous of the fobbits hunkered down behind the wire. Once again, I was in the jungle, marching with the same guys, patrolling the same route, enduring the same stifling heat and bugs.

It wasn’t long before vivid crimson streaks tinted the sky. A shepherd’s warning, if you believed the old tales. Marines didn’t need to be warned. We knew that death was waiting for us.

There are many ways to die in Vietnam; those I feared most had little to do with the Vietcong. Death in battle was so fast that often the victim knew nothing about it. One moment you were a walking, talking bag of bones. The next, you were dead meat in a body bag, and it was all over. That didn’t scare me as much as a lingering death.

Catching Malaria, terrified me. Half a dozen men lay in the camp infirmary, their clammy wet bodies shivering. The disease left formerly powerful soldiers moaning and yellow-skinned. So weak that they used bedpans rather than walk to the latrines. That was what scared me, losing my vitality, and what little control I had over my destiny.

I lost myself in my thoughts as we marched down the same beaten trails as always, following the same paths at the same pace. Each day is the same as the last. Our deaths and misery play out against an exotic backdrop we will never truly appreciate because each of us is secretly terrified.

The local insects' chirrups granted an appropriate soundtrack as golden rays trickled through dense foliage, painting a beautiful watercolor scene. The sunbeams broke through the darkness under the branches, reflecting through spider webs suspended across the path.

A moment of revelation hit me. “Wait!” I cried as I blundered out of my assigned line position and yanked hard on Schmidt’s shoulder.

“What do you want?” He brushed my hand away, as if it were a piece of dog-shit. His disrespectful glare stabbed into my soul.

“What is it, Peters?” The sarge asked, not unkindly, moving to position himself between Schmidt and me.

“Up ahead, can you see? The spider web? That one there, it’s not right.” The words rushed out of me haphazardly. “I don’t quite know why I think this is important, but there is something about how the web hangs, it seems unnatural. Too straight perhaps, definitely thicker than the others.”

“Spider web?” Schmidt queried, “This isn’t a nature ramble kid, we don’t care about fucking spider webs.” The man turned his stocky frame slightly and spat on the ground, missing my boot by mere inches. Schmidt was mid-stride about to continue onward when the sarge spoke.

“Stop where you are, marine.” The sarge’s voice echoed with authority, and the man stopped in his tracks. Shielding his eyes against the sun, Sarge peered down the path towards the spider webs. His brow furrowed as he weighed up the situation.

A wave of relief washed through me. Perhaps for once, I hadn’t screwed up.

Sarge turned to Schmidt. “You played ball in college, didn’t you?”

That surprised me. I’d never thought of Schmidt as able to read and write, let alone having attended college. A skull that thick surely didn’t leave much room between the ears for a brain.

The big lug's face broke into a smile showing irregular teeth. “Yes, Sergeant, I did.” He enunciated every word with pride.

“We’re going to back up a little. Then I want you to find a rock, about the size of a baseball. When you’ve got one I want you to hit that thick strand of web with it.”

Schmidt peered at the web, then back at the sarge. “I … I’ll try.” No enthusiasm was attached to his response this time. Uncertainty coated his voice now and his eyes flicked around wildly. “What are you looking at?” He snapped as he glanced across at the rest of us, a red blush rising on his cheeks.

His first few attempts were wildly off target, much to the amusement of the other squad members. “You throw like a girl,” Robinson slurred. The redneck considering any feminine connotation to be an insult. I figured the man was probably gay and hiding it through his hyper-masculinity, but I kept my thoughts to myself. In the jungle, it’s a survival tactic. You rely on your squad to keep you alive.

Sarge raised an eyebrow and I knew what was coming. Leaders the world over love a smart-ass, it gave them someone to use as an example. “Schmidt, take a break. Robinson is going to show us all how it’s done.” Robinson shut up, a sullen expression blossoming on his face.

With effort, I kept a straight face. So far, from my perspective, this had turned out to be a welcome and amusing excursion. Rooting through the nearby undergrowth, Robinson came up with a flat, bluish-white stone and tossed it in his hand twice, getting a feel for its weight.

Then he hurled from the hip, fast, like skimming a stone across a river. The pebble whirled through the air, rotating like a miniature flying saucer. It snagged the web, slicing through without stopping as it disappeared into the distance.

There wasn’t even time for a cheer before the explosion shook the jungle. When the smoke finally cleared, there was a ragged crater in front of us.

Sarge grunted, “The grenade in a can trick, I’d heard of it, but this is the first time I’ve come across one. Good spot rookie, you probably saved our lives.”

“Yeah, thanks Peters, I owe you one,” Robinson said. Normally when he spoke to me, he used slurs. This was the first time he’d ever called me by my name. I doubted we’d ever be friends, but I felt it was less likely he’d accidentally shoot me in a firefight. That was a start, at least.