Twas the night before doomsday and all through the land
The blood kept on flowing, staining the sand
With kids at the front and brass at the rear
We take in the air soaked with hatred and fear
Sand, blood, and smoke is all that's visible to the eye
We have everything to lose for to fail is to die
You look through the cross hairs and see a young man
Your job is to kill him but you don't know if you can
We do our best to endure this terrestrial Hell
You're hit, you're exhausted, you rest for a spell
We're hot and we're tired, ever expectant that danger is near
No one on Earth seems to know the reason we're here
They're trying to kill me but I won't give them the pleasure
Preparing to partake of this desperate measure
I've lived with the insanity and there's no end in sight
So I write this to you on my last mortal night
Dear Dad,
Rain. Always rain. And when it isn't raining its snowing. Or it's not doing anything at all but melting our dog tags or freezing our...well, you know. Dreary. Always dreary. Even when the sun is shining bright, it's still dreary. The bleakness affects us all. Thank God for gin. Thank God for gin and Trapper John. Thank God for gin and Trapper John and Henry. That's about all there is to be thankful for.
Back to the rain, Dad. It has been raining for three weeks straight. The only plus to this is the fact that its kind of hard to march and fire a rifle when you're swimming. Even the plus has a huge downside. Boredom. There is absolutely nothing to do. What I wouldn't give to have stock in Korean pontoons right about now. I'd make a killing. Despite the lull in the war, business, unfortunately, remains very brisk. With torrential rain comes a rise in the water level. With standing water come every insect and germ you could ever imagine and many you couldn't. Not that you'd want to. We've had more cases of trench foot in the past two weeks than all of the combatants had in the entirety of World War One! Viruses of countless variety, affecting every known part of the human body have plagued the camp recently. But all I can do is sip martinis and lose fake money in poker.
Maybe I should write General Macarthur and bribe him with military scrip to end the war. It probably wouldn't work though. Bastard uses real greenbacks. Who needs Monopoly money when you got the real thing? I'm rambling aren't I? I'll be back, Dad, we've got wounded coming in and I have to scrub up.
I'm back, Dad. Its three days later and I'm twenty years older. Hope you don't mind me dragging ya along for a lousy cup of coffee in the mess tent. I'll tell ya, I operated on a hundred and fourteen patients. All but one survived, and he didn't have a chance anyway. He was a nine year old South Korean boy who stepped on a land mine while searching for garbage to sell. Senseless!! I just don't understand it. As a unit we've handled over four hundred serious wounds over the past three days. I'm not sure I saw that many patients in a year back home. This war. This damned cursed war!! Dad, make it stop! Please, God, please make it stop! Sorry, Dad, I think this is where I shall leave you. I need to go have a good belt and a good cry and a good sleep. I'll write again as soon as I've found all of my marbles.
Your Mentally Incapacitated Son,
Hawkeye