…few months later
"Any of you men know which one of these officers is 2nd Lieutenant Goldman." Sergeant Anderson shouted as he passed one of the trucks quickly filling with the replacements headed for Firebase Ladybird.
A boy turned to face him. The Sergeant barely managed to suppress the shudder that threatened to crawl down his spine as he stared into hauntingly familiar eyes.
"Naw!" Zeke thought to himself as the upstart muttered something about a salute, "Just tired."
Continuing with the business of loading up the newbies, Zeke tried to keep his thoughts away from the memory of the fire from the C-47 tearing up the ground around him - pain searing across his shoulder - his head spinning as the world around him faded into blackness - deep, brown eyes looking down at him as a soothing voice told him to "hang in there, he'd be all right." That dream - those eyes, he hadn't thought about it - them - in months.
Zeke tried hard to push away the vision of the young face hovering over him as he lost consciousness. So this kid reminded him of that disastrous mission, didn't mean anything. Man! The firebase was just overrun, again. He was worn-out, that's all it was. Zeke forced himself to focus on the faces of his new men as he boarded the truck. No way he was tangling himself up in that mess again, he'd already nearly landed himself in Psych because of it.
The Sergeant chatted with the new Lieutenant, avoiding eye contact as much as possible. The kid was a pretty typical cherry butter bar, Zeke didn't figure him to last long.
"Kid ain't nuthin' but trouble," the Sergeant told himself as a fresh chill ran down his spine.
Eager to escape, the Sergeant searched for the harmonica player. What was his name? - Horn. Spotting him, Zeke squeezed in next to the kid, letting the beautiful sounds the newbie produced from his small instrument push the Sergeant's old demons away.