We Didn't Start the Fire
Disclaimer: Same as before. Billy Joel owns the song We Didn't Start the Fire.
Eternity - Thanks for the review, I appreciated it. This chapter's just a bit more explanation as to why Hiram left so abruptly.
~ ~ ~ ~
"Well have we done thrice valiant countrymen! Yet all's not done! Yet keep the French the field!" - Henry V, William Shakespeare
~ ~ ~ ~
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Maciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2143: Lead scout. The guy in the front of the patrol, the first one to fire in a contact or die in the ambush was the position I was in. Behind me were seven other guys from Mountain Troop. Each of us carried a belt kit, field pack, and the sort of weapon we favored in this particular terrain. They were standard issue weapons of course, and we had the choice of the L- 99 Pulse Rifle, the 206 (adding the 40mm M206 grenade launcher to the L- 99), the shotgun, or the electric gun (the burner). The latter two weapons were the lead scout's weapons of choice. Mine was the burner.
True the average contact in the dense bush was at around five to ten meters, and the shotgun was favored for that reason, but I like the fact that with a flip of a small dial on the hand guard I could focus the electrical discharge from a cone of electrical energy to a burst that could hit something accurately up to two hundred meters away.
I had a headband wrapped around my forehead as well, to keep the camouflage paint, sweat and insect repellant out of my eyes. Not advisable if you're a lead scout to be rubbing your eyes constantly. All our communication was done with hand signals and the occasional whisper. Silence was more than golden, as they taught us in Jungle Warfare School, it was life itself.
I moved a branch away, out of my face. The rest of the patrol followed behind me, never more than an arm's length away from each other. I turned my weapon on its side, to take a quick bearing off the Silva compass I taped to one side. I covered it over with a piece of cloth so that an enemy scout wouldn't see a big luminous arrow indicating a human soldier's compass.
I directed the squad left a couple paces and we hadn't moved more than a few meters before I sighted a pair of lamp like eyes staring right at me. I raised my weapon, squeezed the trigger and let old Gollum have it with about eight amperes of electrical current.
"Contact front!" I shouted. At this I advanced with the patrol leader at my heels. The purpose behind this is to recon by fire. Find the size of the enemy force we faced. If it was small enough, destroy it. If not, establish fire superiority and peel back.
As we advanced we saw we'd blundered straight into a reinforced platoon of hostiles. "Peel back!"
What that means is that we would take positions and fire on the enemy, as one of our boys would run to the back of the line, reloading as he ran and resuming fire once he got there. We'd leap frog all the way out of the fray and towards safety, right into the Rio Orinoco Outpost.
~ ~ ~ ~
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2143: The sound of explosions. That was what I best remember about the opening days of 2143. I and the seven other guys of my patrol had arrived at Rio Orinoco Outpost for the closing reels of the horror flick the place had become, the soldiers of the 9th Rangers, reinforced by a company from the 15th British Light Infantry Division, we relieved had been living it for five months.
We'd placed a minefield through the ravine crossing the enemy line of advance. And from the sounding explosions of the movement sensitive proximity mines, there were a lot of them. Following the blasts, there was but an eerie silence.
"Maybe they're not coming." Gennaro said, he was a tough, swaggering twenty year old from South Central LA with his ragged fatigues bearing the insignia the 9th Rangers. All he really wanted was to go home. I remember nearly getting shot by the kid when I led the patrol into the outpost.
"Maybe they're turning back." Gennaro said, the kid was shaking, scared, all he wanted was to go home. "Maybe we got 'em all."
The suddenly we heard a feral war cry echoing from the trees, followed by many more just like it. Into the clearing burst a number of zombies, ogres, and Gollums. "Fire!!!"
~ ~ ~ ~
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2146: I sat up in bed, peering around my old room. I pinched myself to see if it was all real, that I wasn't gonna wake up at my position in Rio Orinoco. The time on my alarm clock read 0300, three a.m., no way in hell I was getting back to sleep. I walked downstairs to run headlong into Aunt Daphne.
"Aunt Daphne," I asked, "What are you doing up?"
"Velma's flying in to Orlando at six o'clock. I'm going to pick her up. Aren't you up a little early?" Daphne asked me.
"Nah, I remember sleeping in short, three to four hour shifts with two of us on guard at any time when we'd be out in the jungle for weeks at a time. I remember one four week patrol where I'd slept an average of two to three hours a night." I replied.
"Really?" Aunt Daphne asked.
"We'd had a lot of contacts." I replied, referring to the number of times we crossed swords with opposing patrols.
"Well, if you're not doing anything, do you want to give me a hand?" Aunt Daphne asks.
"Certainly." I reply. Sleepily I pile into Aunt Daphne's Lincoln Navigator SUV. Within a few minutes of putting on my seatbelt I'm asleep.
~ ~ ~ ~
Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2143: I fire my electric gun in a burst that nails a charging Gollum in the mid chest, hitting the creature with about four amps of electricity. I keep firing my weapon again and again, because the creatures have burst into our perimeter around the Rio Orinoco outpost.
I fire on three more that have breached the perimeter and are heading for the infirmary, killing two of them and chasing a third. He turns and jumps me and the war for me turns into a very personal struggle of mano y mano. The creature takes a bite out of my forearm and shouting in pain I shove his face into a puddle of water, holding it under as its limbs thrash violently and its head bucks against my push. It lets go of my forearm and I keep holding its head in water until it drowns.
I grab my weapon up and fire on a zombie that just staggered through a hole in the wire. I also grab a grenade from my belt kit and lob it right into the midst of another group of zombies. All around me I hear fellow soldiers fighting, some dying in the attempt.
~ ~ ~ ~
2146: I sit awake in the SUV as we pull into the parking lot of Orlando International Airport. I pinch myself to realize I'm not dreaming and I really am back in South America. I look down to see I'm wearing civilian clothes instead of olive drab jungle fatigues. I look around to see that no creatures are sneaking up on me. Flashbacks are never a good thing.
~ ~ ~ ~
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2146: "Aunt Velma." I say with excitement and emotion, despite my tired state.
"Hiram!" Aunt Velma says and gives me a bear hug. Jesus that woman's stronger than she looks. Or am I getting weaker?
"How have you been?" I ask.
"Good, and you?" Velma replies.
"It's good to be home." I reply, evasively. While it's true, I'm glad I'm home again, I can't help but feel the effects South America left on me. I still visit it in my dreams and flashbacks again and again.
As we head down to the baggage claim I catch sight of a young woman. Then I look twice. She is very familiar to me, even though the last time I saw her was six years ago. I regard her again. Medium height, pleasant figure, small, high breasts, dark brown hair, a rounded nose and strong hips. It hits me like a 10mm explosive tip round. Kate Barnes, my childhood friend who I've had a crush on for years. My heart skips a beat when I see her.
She turns and our eyes meet, "Hiram Becker, can that be you?"
I smile despite myself, "It is."
"When did you get in town?" Kate asks excitedly.
"Last night." I reply.
"You're up a little early aren't you?" Kate said.
"My Aunt Velma just flew in." I reply.
"Really?" Kate asks, "How is she?"
"Good, I guess, I hadn't really heard much from her since she went out west." I reply.
We hug each other, her fingers brushing across a scar on the back of my neck. "Where did that come from?" Kate asks.
"Mortar attack in the Atacama Desert back in 2144." I reply with less emotion than I intended, during that attack the mortar blast killed Arturo and Fife, two of my good buddies in the unit.
"Why did you volunteer to go to South America?" Kate asked me.
"I'm a soldier, I go where I'm ordered to go." I reply. There's no way in hell I'm telling Kate I left for her.
"Don't try pulling that with me." Kate says, her arms folded across her chest, "You tried to leave the Territorial Special Forces and go transfer into the active Regiment."
"I wanted to do my bit." I reply. Kate regards me with those sea blue eyes of hers and I feel like a rat bastard lying to her, though I'm telling a partial truth.
"They'd have called the Territorials up anyway." Kate replies, "I mean not one month after you turned in your paper work the 21st was shipped out to South America."
"That's me, the ever earnest bleeding patriot." I reply. I see Kate's left hand still has the platinum promise ring on it.
"You're still engaged?" I ask.
"Scott and I are still setting a date." Kate replies. She just seems so happy, and that's what drove me away in the first place, "Between his travels as a pharmaceutical salesman and my veterinary work we had to put off the wedding. He was trying to get the manufacturing facilities to make a new drug for wounded soldiers."
"Oh yeah, I remember that. I kept that new morphine mix in two syrettes around my neck any time I was in South Am." I reply.
For an instant I'm twenty-three again and Kate has just invited me to her apartment to tell me about her engagement to Scott. They'd been dating for three years before that and then after they finished undergraduate school they went to tie the knot. For six days I wandered the streets of Jacksonville in a drunken stupor and then decided I had to go into the 22nd Special Forces to get away from this hellhole my life had become. For all my soldierly courage, I can't seem to tell Kate how I really feel about her. What the hell would that accomplish anyway but tears on both sides? I know I'm still on the guest list, but I'm likely gonna get so drunk before and after the wedding to dull my pain.
"Well, I've gotta get going, I'll see you later. You still are at Shaggy's house?" Kate asks.
"I still live there, yes, at least temporarily. You're still at your place?"
"Temporarily." Kate replies, smiling.
God damn, as I live and breathe, because of this woman I repeatedly volunteered for one of the most bloody and destructive theaters of the entire war. I extended my tours months ahead because I had nothing to look forward to. My beloved Kate was marrying another man, and I was left alone in the cold for it.
~ ~ ~ ~
Kate Barnes walked into the Toyota Tacoma with her father, General Robert Barnes, US Army Air Corps. "Katie, how was Los Angeles?"
"Good." Kate replied, "I ran into Hiram today at the airport."
"How is he doing?" Barnes replied with a grin, "Is he still in the Army?"
"I didn't ask." Kate replied, "South America must've done a number on him."
"It did a number on a lot of soldiers." Barnes replied, "So how's Scott."
"He's fine." Kate replied. Scott Petersen, her fiancé, what a nice guy he was. And that's all she could think of him. Pleasant. Even tempered most of the time. Good looking, reasonably so. Innocuous was the word that readily sprung to mind.
'Hiram, you seemed to be thinking something years ago when I told you about Scott. And now when I mentioned it, I saw some sort of look in your eyes, a kind of sadness. What are you thinking? Was that what made you volunteer for three extended tours in South America?' Kate thought as they drove off back to the house.
~ ~ ~ ~
As Hiram lay sound asleep in the back seat, Velma and Daphne talked amongst themselves. "Did you see him with Kate earlier?" Daphne said.
"Yeah, I did. You don't think he's..." Velma said.
"He definitely is still in love with her." Daphne said.
~ ~ ~ ~
As they continue to gossip about this, thinking I don't hear them, I can't help but realize how accurate my aunts' assessments are. I still love Kate. There was barely an instant in South Am, except when I was in combat or creeping through the brush; that she wasn't on my mind. I remember one or two LRRPs (Long Range Recon Patrols) where thinking of her kept me marching through the jungle or across narrow mountain trails in the Andes. I gotta resolve this.
~ ~ ~ ~
TBC
Disclaimer: Same as before. Billy Joel owns the song We Didn't Start the Fire.
Eternity - Thanks for the review, I appreciated it. This chapter's just a bit more explanation as to why Hiram left so abruptly.
~ ~ ~ ~
"Well have we done thrice valiant countrymen! Yet all's not done! Yet keep the French the field!" - Henry V, William Shakespeare
~ ~ ~ ~
Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnny Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, Television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe
Rosenbergs, H Bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom
Brando, The King And I, and The Catcher In The Rye
Eisenhower, Vaccine, England's got a new queen
Maciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2143: Lead scout. The guy in the front of the patrol, the first one to fire in a contact or die in the ambush was the position I was in. Behind me were seven other guys from Mountain Troop. Each of us carried a belt kit, field pack, and the sort of weapon we favored in this particular terrain. They were standard issue weapons of course, and we had the choice of the L- 99 Pulse Rifle, the 206 (adding the 40mm M206 grenade launcher to the L- 99), the shotgun, or the electric gun (the burner). The latter two weapons were the lead scout's weapons of choice. Mine was the burner.
True the average contact in the dense bush was at around five to ten meters, and the shotgun was favored for that reason, but I like the fact that with a flip of a small dial on the hand guard I could focus the electrical discharge from a cone of electrical energy to a burst that could hit something accurately up to two hundred meters away.
I had a headband wrapped around my forehead as well, to keep the camouflage paint, sweat and insect repellant out of my eyes. Not advisable if you're a lead scout to be rubbing your eyes constantly. All our communication was done with hand signals and the occasional whisper. Silence was more than golden, as they taught us in Jungle Warfare School, it was life itself.
I moved a branch away, out of my face. The rest of the patrol followed behind me, never more than an arm's length away from each other. I turned my weapon on its side, to take a quick bearing off the Silva compass I taped to one side. I covered it over with a piece of cloth so that an enemy scout wouldn't see a big luminous arrow indicating a human soldier's compass.
I directed the squad left a couple paces and we hadn't moved more than a few meters before I sighted a pair of lamp like eyes staring right at me. I raised my weapon, squeezed the trigger and let old Gollum have it with about eight amperes of electrical current.
"Contact front!" I shouted. At this I advanced with the patrol leader at my heels. The purpose behind this is to recon by fire. Find the size of the enemy force we faced. If it was small enough, destroy it. If not, establish fire superiority and peel back.
As we advanced we saw we'd blundered straight into a reinforced platoon of hostiles. "Peel back!"
What that means is that we would take positions and fire on the enemy, as one of our boys would run to the back of the line, reloading as he ran and resuming fire once he got there. We'd leap frog all the way out of the fray and towards safety, right into the Rio Orinoco Outpost.
~ ~ ~ ~
Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc
Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dancron
Dien Bien Phu Falls, Rock Around the Clock
Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland
Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Khrushchev
Princess Grace, Peyton Place, Trouble in the Suez
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2143: The sound of explosions. That was what I best remember about the opening days of 2143. I and the seven other guys of my patrol had arrived at Rio Orinoco Outpost for the closing reels of the horror flick the place had become, the soldiers of the 9th Rangers, reinforced by a company from the 15th British Light Infantry Division, we relieved had been living it for five months.
We'd placed a minefield through the ravine crossing the enemy line of advance. And from the sounding explosions of the movement sensitive proximity mines, there were a lot of them. Following the blasts, there was but an eerie silence.
"Maybe they're not coming." Gennaro said, he was a tough, swaggering twenty year old from South Central LA with his ragged fatigues bearing the insignia the 9th Rangers. All he really wanted was to go home. I remember nearly getting shot by the kid when I led the patrol into the outpost.
"Maybe they're turning back." Gennaro said, the kid was shaking, scared, all he wanted was to go home. "Maybe we got 'em all."
The suddenly we heard a feral war cry echoing from the trees, followed by many more just like it. Into the clearing burst a number of zombies, ogres, and Gollums. "Fire!!!"
~ ~ ~ ~
Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, Bridge On The River Kwai
Lebanon, Charles de Gaulle, California baseball
Starkwether, Homicide, Children of Thalidomide
Buddy Holly, Ben Hur, Space Monkey, Mafia
Hula Hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go
U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy
Chubby Checker, Psycho, Belgians in the Congo
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2146: I sat up in bed, peering around my old room. I pinched myself to see if it was all real, that I wasn't gonna wake up at my position in Rio Orinoco. The time on my alarm clock read 0300, three a.m., no way in hell I was getting back to sleep. I walked downstairs to run headlong into Aunt Daphne.
"Aunt Daphne," I asked, "What are you doing up?"
"Velma's flying in to Orlando at six o'clock. I'm going to pick her up. Aren't you up a little early?" Daphne asked me.
"Nah, I remember sleeping in short, three to four hour shifts with two of us on guard at any time when we'd be out in the jungle for weeks at a time. I remember one four week patrol where I'd slept an average of two to three hours a night." I replied.
"Really?" Aunt Daphne asked.
"We'd had a lot of contacts." I replied, referring to the number of times we crossed swords with opposing patrols.
"Well, if you're not doing anything, do you want to give me a hand?" Aunt Daphne asks.
"Certainly." I reply. Sleepily I pile into Aunt Daphne's Lincoln Navigator SUV. Within a few minutes of putting on my seatbelt I'm asleep.
~ ~ ~ ~
Hemingway, Eichman, Stranger in a Strange Land
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion
Lawrence of Arabia, British Beatlemania
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson
Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British Politician sex
J.F.K. blown away, what else do I have to say
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2143: I fire my electric gun in a burst that nails a charging Gollum in the mid chest, hitting the creature with about four amps of electricity. I keep firing my weapon again and again, because the creatures have burst into our perimeter around the Rio Orinoco outpost.
I fire on three more that have breached the perimeter and are heading for the infirmary, killing two of them and chasing a third. He turns and jumps me and the war for me turns into a very personal struggle of mano y mano. The creature takes a bite out of my forearm and shouting in pain I shove his face into a puddle of water, holding it under as its limbs thrash violently and its head bucks against my push. It lets go of my forearm and I keep holding its head in water until it drowns.
I grab my weapon up and fire on a zombie that just staggered through a hole in the wire. I also grab a grenade from my belt kit and lob it right into the midst of another group of zombies. All around me I hear fellow soldiers fighting, some dying in the attempt.
~ ~ ~ ~
2146: I sit awake in the SUV as we pull into the parking lot of Orlando International Airport. I pinch myself to realize I'm not dreaming and I really am back in South America. I look down to see I'm wearing civilian clothes instead of olive drab jungle fatigues. I look around to see that no creatures are sneaking up on me. Flashbacks are never a good thing.
~ ~ ~ ~
Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, Terror on the airline
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan
Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide
Foreign debts, homeless Vets, AIDS, Crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law
Rock and Roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning
Since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No we didn't light it
But we tried to fight it
~ ~ ~ ~
2146: "Aunt Velma." I say with excitement and emotion, despite my tired state.
"Hiram!" Aunt Velma says and gives me a bear hug. Jesus that woman's stronger than she looks. Or am I getting weaker?
"How have you been?" I ask.
"Good, and you?" Velma replies.
"It's good to be home." I reply, evasively. While it's true, I'm glad I'm home again, I can't help but feel the effects South America left on me. I still visit it in my dreams and flashbacks again and again.
As we head down to the baggage claim I catch sight of a young woman. Then I look twice. She is very familiar to me, even though the last time I saw her was six years ago. I regard her again. Medium height, pleasant figure, small, high breasts, dark brown hair, a rounded nose and strong hips. It hits me like a 10mm explosive tip round. Kate Barnes, my childhood friend who I've had a crush on for years. My heart skips a beat when I see her.
She turns and our eyes meet, "Hiram Becker, can that be you?"
I smile despite myself, "It is."
"When did you get in town?" Kate asks excitedly.
"Last night." I reply.
"You're up a little early aren't you?" Kate said.
"My Aunt Velma just flew in." I reply.
"Really?" Kate asks, "How is she?"
"Good, I guess, I hadn't really heard much from her since she went out west." I reply.
We hug each other, her fingers brushing across a scar on the back of my neck. "Where did that come from?" Kate asks.
"Mortar attack in the Atacama Desert back in 2144." I reply with less emotion than I intended, during that attack the mortar blast killed Arturo and Fife, two of my good buddies in the unit.
"Why did you volunteer to go to South America?" Kate asked me.
"I'm a soldier, I go where I'm ordered to go." I reply. There's no way in hell I'm telling Kate I left for her.
"Don't try pulling that with me." Kate says, her arms folded across her chest, "You tried to leave the Territorial Special Forces and go transfer into the active Regiment."
"I wanted to do my bit." I reply. Kate regards me with those sea blue eyes of hers and I feel like a rat bastard lying to her, though I'm telling a partial truth.
"They'd have called the Territorials up anyway." Kate replies, "I mean not one month after you turned in your paper work the 21st was shipped out to South America."
"That's me, the ever earnest bleeding patriot." I reply. I see Kate's left hand still has the platinum promise ring on it.
"You're still engaged?" I ask.
"Scott and I are still setting a date." Kate replies. She just seems so happy, and that's what drove me away in the first place, "Between his travels as a pharmaceutical salesman and my veterinary work we had to put off the wedding. He was trying to get the manufacturing facilities to make a new drug for wounded soldiers."
"Oh yeah, I remember that. I kept that new morphine mix in two syrettes around my neck any time I was in South Am." I reply.
For an instant I'm twenty-three again and Kate has just invited me to her apartment to tell me about her engagement to Scott. They'd been dating for three years before that and then after they finished undergraduate school they went to tie the knot. For six days I wandered the streets of Jacksonville in a drunken stupor and then decided I had to go into the 22nd Special Forces to get away from this hellhole my life had become. For all my soldierly courage, I can't seem to tell Kate how I really feel about her. What the hell would that accomplish anyway but tears on both sides? I know I'm still on the guest list, but I'm likely gonna get so drunk before and after the wedding to dull my pain.
"Well, I've gotta get going, I'll see you later. You still are at Shaggy's house?" Kate asks.
"I still live there, yes, at least temporarily. You're still at your place?"
"Temporarily." Kate replies, smiling.
God damn, as I live and breathe, because of this woman I repeatedly volunteered for one of the most bloody and destructive theaters of the entire war. I extended my tours months ahead because I had nothing to look forward to. My beloved Kate was marrying another man, and I was left alone in the cold for it.
~ ~ ~ ~
Kate Barnes walked into the Toyota Tacoma with her father, General Robert Barnes, US Army Air Corps. "Katie, how was Los Angeles?"
"Good." Kate replied, "I ran into Hiram today at the airport."
"How is he doing?" Barnes replied with a grin, "Is he still in the Army?"
"I didn't ask." Kate replied, "South America must've done a number on him."
"It did a number on a lot of soldiers." Barnes replied, "So how's Scott."
"He's fine." Kate replied. Scott Petersen, her fiancé, what a nice guy he was. And that's all she could think of him. Pleasant. Even tempered most of the time. Good looking, reasonably so. Innocuous was the word that readily sprung to mind.
'Hiram, you seemed to be thinking something years ago when I told you about Scott. And now when I mentioned it, I saw some sort of look in your eyes, a kind of sadness. What are you thinking? Was that what made you volunteer for three extended tours in South America?' Kate thought as they drove off back to the house.
~ ~ ~ ~
As Hiram lay sound asleep in the back seat, Velma and Daphne talked amongst themselves. "Did you see him with Kate earlier?" Daphne said.
"Yeah, I did. You don't think he's..." Velma said.
"He definitely is still in love with her." Daphne said.
~ ~ ~ ~
As they continue to gossip about this, thinking I don't hear them, I can't help but realize how accurate my aunts' assessments are. I still love Kate. There was barely an instant in South Am, except when I was in combat or creeping through the brush; that she wasn't on my mind. I remember one or two LRRPs (Long Range Recon Patrols) where thinking of her kept me marching through the jungle or across narrow mountain trails in the Andes. I gotta resolve this.
~ ~ ~ ~
TBC
