This chapter involves quite a bit of violence and some harsh language.
I don't have military experience so I'm sorry if any of this is inaccurate.
(Sodapop's POV)
The day I left Tulsa was the worst day of my life, and with everything else that has happened over the years, that's saying something.
The whole gang was at the airport saying goodbye to each other. Two-Bit didn't even try to crack a joke, so I knew he was more than worried– he was terrified that he'd never see me or Steve again. When I hugged him and said goodbye, it warmed my heart when he told me that he'd keep an eye on my brothers and make sure they were doing okay. I told him he was a good buddy, and I asked him to write to me so we could keep in touch.
Saying goodbye to my brothers broke my heart, and I was sure I'd die right there at the airport, with pieces of my shattered heart littering the floor. Darry tried to be strong, and he really was, but tears still escaped his eyes. He promised to take care of Ponyboy, and after I pressured him, he agreed to take care of himself too. Ponyboy asked if I was going to do everything possible to return home, and I assured him that was my biggest goal. Then he gave me the semester theme he wrote the previous year so I had something from him with me at all times and I could read it if I had free time.
The three of us hugged each other for a long time, and we promised to write to each other as much as possible. Eventually, Steve reminded me that we had a plane to catch. After taking one last glance at Two-Bit and my brothers, we boarded the plane, leaving the remainder of the gang and Tulsa behind.
That was over a year ago.
After boot camp, Steve and I were shipped off to Vietnam. We were in the same unit, and after a few months, Steve was promoted and became my commanding officer. I was really happy for him, and it was a good fit. Steve was always smart, decisive, and he even managed to learn a lot of the native language, so he was able to translate when we needed him to. Steve also liked telling people what to do, but he never really bossed me around. The other guys joked and said I was Steve's second-in-command since we were buddies and all, and Steve never denied it.
Steve was proud of his promotion, but he joked around by claiming he was only promoted because a lot of the other C.O.s were being killed so fast, that they had to keep being replaced. I was pretty sure he was mostly thankful that the promotion meant more money would be sent to Darry back home. I had heard the conversation between Steve and Darry the night I got my draft notice, but I didn't tell either of them. Eventually, Steve told me that he was giving Darry all of his military salary, and when I told him I already knew, he just grinned. We both wanted to help Darry out as much as possible, but we just didn't know if he would accept the help.
Between the guys in our unit and the others nearby, I saw some similarities between them and our gang back home. Henry was the joker of the group, and besides his dark brown hair, he reminded me a lot of Two-Bit. Henry was always up for a prank, but he was reprimanded once for messing around with a grenade. He said it was harmless fun, but Steve and the officers nearby didn't agree. There was a guy that was just as tall and muscular as Darry, and he was just as mature too. We called him Butch, but I could never remember his real name. He just really looked like a Butch. The really unnerving similarity was between Harrison and my kid brother. Harrison was the youngest one in our unit. Like me, he was drafted right after his 18th birthday, but his facial features and small size made him look like he was still 16. Harrison's hair was the same color as Ponyboy's too. Harrison was a good kid, and he didn't enjoy having to shoot other human beings, but he did it since it meant preservation of himself and the rest of us.
There was a smaller guy in a different unit that reminded me of Johnny, but I tended to distance myself from him. Seeing him just made me miss the good ol' days and the buddies we lost. There were a lot of guys around that reminded me of Dally and Tim, but they seemed to either be smoking or doing other things most of the time I saw them, so I steered clear of them too.
"Mail's here, Soda."
Steve's voice broke through my thoughts, and I was brought back into reality. I was lying on my cot, staring at the ceiling, daydreaming and remembering everything good that I could recall. I sat up and took my mail from Steve. As soon as I saw the handwriting on the envelopes, I smiled. My brothers had both written to me again. Two-Bit too. I tore the envelopes open and immediately started reading while Steve sat next to me and did the same with his mail.
Like always, Darry was checking up on me and asked how I was doing. I was more truthful with him than when Pony asked the same question, but I never told either of them that the faces of the men I murdered haunted me in my dreams. I was happy to read that Darry got a raise and he had also started working a few less hours per week. The next thing Darry wrote about was how proud he was of our kid brother– even though he was still just a junior in high school, colleges had started to send him mail, and many of them said they would like to offer him academic and athletic scholarships. While I read his words, I was so proud of both of them.
Pony's letter mentioned the same thing about colleges sending him mail, but he seemed to act humble about it. Pony mostly wrote about the rodeo that he, Darry, and Two-Bit went to. He was really excited to spend the day there, and then he wrote that none of the saddle bronc cowboys were as good as I was back in the day. I couldn't stop the smile forming on my face.
Two-Bit wrote about all sorts of stuff. The rodeo, getting into a fight with some Socs, and the pretty girls he's been hanging out with. After all of that, he told me Darry and Pony were doing as well as could be expected. They were getting along just fine, but they missed me a lot. He said they even seemed to miss Steve, which made me chuckle. He ended his letter the same way he always did: reminding me to watch my six, and that he was holding down the fort while I was away. I was glad Two-Bit was keeping an eye on my brothers, and I always tried to thank him when I wrote him back.
When I was done reading my letters, I looked over at the letters in Steve's hands. I immediately recognized Ponyboy's neat handwriting on the letter on top, and attached to the letter, a picture of tuff-looking car. Two-Bit and Darry also wrote to Steve, and he appreciated it a lot, but he was always real happy when he got letters from Ponyboy. I don't know what else Pony wrote to him, but he always had a picture of a car with his letter that he had cut out from a magazine or something. When Steve would write back, he would write down everything he knew about the car that Ponyboy sent. It made me happy that not only did they get along better than they used to, but my kid brother had found a way to make Steve smile, even though we were stuck in the middle of the godforsaken jungle.
I wanted to write back to my brothers and Two-Bit right away. I looked at my calendar, trying to figure out when I'd hear from them again, but I realized something else. It was getting close to the three year anniversary of my parents' death. Around the time the two year anniversary passed, I got letters from my brothers and Two-Bit, all of them trying to cheer me up in one way or another. On that day, Steve decided we needed to practice our knife throwing skills, so he took me to an area of the jungle that he carved out some targets on the trees. I was thankful that I was able to spend the emotional day with my buddy, and he managed to make me smile and forget reality for a while.
I had just started writing a letter back to Darry when there was a lot of commotion outside. Steve and I shared a look before I dropped the paper and pencil and grabbed my weapon.
Bullets were flying through the jungle. The smell of smoke and death filled the air. Whenever a grenade exploded, there were a mixture of shouts of surprise and cries of pain. Men were shouting all around us, and in the thick brush, it was impossible to know if the voices were from the enemy or from one of our own. There was a good chance it would be my last day on Earth.
Just another day in the life of a soldier, I guess.
"Grenade!" I heard a familiar voice nearby yell. Before I could even think, an explosion on my left sent me flying sideways.
I landed hard on my side, with my gun pressing into my ribs. I was thankful I didn't somehow shoot myself, but I immediately felt pain shooting up the left side of my body. The ringing in my ears was blaring, but after a few seconds, I heard someone frantically yelling my name.
"Soda!" It was Steve. "SODA!"
I turned my head and found Steve looking at me with a feral look in his eyes. He was taking cover behind a tree only a few feet from me. When he met my gaze, the wild look in his eyes disappeared, and it was replaced with a hardened expression. After sending a few more bullets towards the enemy, he left the protection of the tree and ran to me. Within seconds, he was dragging me behind the tree.
"How bad are ya hurt?" Steve asked as he kneeled down next to me.
I mentally took inventory of my injuries. Then I dared to look at my leg, and I was strangely relieved; only a few large pieces of shrapnel had torn through my uniform and into my skin. A couple pieces had found my calf, and one particularly large one was inserted into my thigh. "I'm fine, just got some metal in my leg."
Steve looked at my leg, then back at my face. "They don't look too deep. I'm gonna take them out." Before I could even reply, he started pulling the foreign objects out of my skin. After throwing a few curses at him, he laughed. "You sure you wanna talk to your C.O. like that?"
I settled my breathing before answering. "Well when my C.O. is hurting me, yes." He ignored me and bandaged my wounds the best he could. With Steve's help, I managed to get back on my feet. Then we took cover behind the biggest tree we could get to.
The gunfire didn't slow down, and I was worried the bleeding from my wounds wasn't slowing down either. We didn't have much for first aid in the field, so I just hoped I wasn't going to bleed out before I could be treated be a medic.
As we continued fighting the enemy from behind the tree, Steve and I didn't even need to speak because we had a system: he would reload as I was shooting, and when I needed to reload, he would shoot. Apparently, the hunting trips my dad took my brothers and me on came in handy because I was the best shot in our unit, and in the amount of time it took Steve to reload, I could kill two men. It was a horrible skill to have, but I just wanted to do everything possible to bring myself and Steve back home to Tulsa. The longer we kept shooting, I knew our chances of survival were decreasing.
Suddenly, I heard a cry of pain to my left, and when I saw who it was, everything seemed to start slowing down. Harrison was lying behind a fallen tree, clutching his thigh, blood oozing through his fingers. The logical part of me knew we were in Vietnam and that it was Harrison that was injured, but another part of my brain made me see Ponyboy bleeding out in the jungle. The conflicting thoughts blended together, and all I knew was there was a young auburn-haired kid that was injured and in danger of being killed. I had to help him.
"Cover me," I told Steve. Before he had time to argue, I bolted towards Harrison.
I got to him quicker than I thought possible, and I slid next to him so I was also protected from the trunk of the fallen tree. Immediately, I took the bandage I carried in my pack and tied it around the bullet wound. He groaned in pain, but he let me perform the mediocre first-aid attempt. When I tied the fabric in a knot, Harrison thanked me through gritted teeth. Suddenly, Butch appeared next to us and offered to help, with Henry right next to him.
"Get him out of here," I ordered. "I'll cover you."
As Butch easily picked Harrison up, the similarities between them and my brothers were even more apparent. I had to shake my head to clear it from memories of Darry carrying Ponyboy so I could focus on the present. When Butch was ready to run for it, we shared a look and nodded. I turned around and shot at the enemy from behind the fallen tree as Butch ran with Harrison. Henry ran with them as he also shot at the enemy, protecting them from behind.
I felt the impact before the pain.
I was still shooting, giving the three guys time to get away, when I felt the bullet pierce my skin and lodge into my right shoulder. I let a few more bullets fly before the pain made it almost impossible to fire my gun anymore. I shrunk behind my barrier and reached to grab my shoulder. When I touched my skin, my fingers were covered in blood and the pain intensified. I heard a cry of pain, and as I curled into myself, I realized the sound probably came from me. A few moments passed before I recognized a voice to my right.
"Soda, get outta there!" Steve shouted from behind the tree. "You gotta move!" I looked sideways at my friend, and the wild look was back in his eyes. I recognized it as terror.
I already knew I wasn't in a great spot, but the look in Steve's eyes told me I was running out of time.
After taking a few breaths, I held my gun with my left hand, and made a break for it. As I sprinted back towards Steve, he was shooting to give me some cover, and I was attempting to shoot with my left hand. I was only a few feet away from Steve when another jolt of pain sliced across my right thigh. I took one more step before falling onto the ground behind Steve. I landed on my shoulder, and this time, I knew I was shouting and crying from the pain.
"Let me see, buddy," he said in his calm-yet-commanding voice.
I lied on the ground with my eyes closed, praying that I wasn't as bad off as I felt. Steve was moving me around, apparently trying to see my injuries better, and I tried my best to stifle my groans and cries. I imagined myself dying in a pool of blood on the jungle floor.
"That one just grazed your leg, but it's bleeding' like a stuck pig." I felt him tie something around my leg. "I can't do much about the one in your shoulder." Then I heard a sharp intake of air. "Shit, that grenade got you in the side too."
I heard shouting coming from the area where our enemy was, and I knew they were closing in on us. "Just leave me Steve. I'll buy you some time."
"You know there's no way in hell that's happening," he spat. Then I felt him shift my weight around. Suddenly, I felt myself being lifted, and I found myself draped across Steve's shoulders. "I ain't leaving you."
Steve started running, and although the jostling sent jolts of pain throughout my body, I couldn't help but feel relieved and grateful for his attempt of saving my life. I could hear bullets whizzing past us, and I couldn't help but wonder when the one that would end my life would hit. A few moments passed, and I heard the sound of a bullet impacting skin, but it wasn't me that got hit.
Steve grunted in pain, and even though he slowed down, he kept moving. "Steve, you okay?" I asked with the little amount of air I could gather. He ignored me and kept running "You'll have a better chance if you leave me-"
"Not a chance," Steve growled.
I started to feel like my life was draining out of me with every drop of my blood that was spilled. Even if Steve got me back to camp and a medic could treat me, how much blood did I have to spare? How much blood lost was too much?
Another sound of a bullet hitting its target, and Steve and I both ended up on the ground.
My world went black.
