A few words from the author: Thank you to all who read my story, and a bigger thank you to all who reviewed it.
Notes on the text: The beginning of this chapter is very sad.
Enjoy
February 9, 1968; 921 local time; Saigon, Vietnam
Ichigo was shaken from his slumber by an explosion. He heard small-arms fire coming off of the wall opposite of his position, he knew what was happening. He loaded his weapon and stumbled over to one of the windows. Even though he had been through some tough fights, combat still had a chaotic overtone for him.
He set up his weapon in one of the windows. From his second story vantage point he could see about fifteen people running around in khaki uniforms and pith helmets, carrying AK's, they were NVA (North Vietnam Army). Ichigo opened fire and started sweeping the area with hot lead, shell casings clanging as they hit the tile floor.
The fight was brief, the enemy retreated after about seven minutes, leaving five corpses behind. Shunsui was talking on the radio trying to get some med-evac for the three men wounded in the fight. After about ten minutes the three men were evacuated and five enemy bodies were stacked up on the side of the road.
Ichigo had helped clean up and for his efforts found himself in the possesion of a little red book. It was sewn together with a red string and had red leather covers, Một mẩu nhà was written on the front in black ink. He had taken it off of one of the dead men. As he opened it up, a small picture fell out and wafted face-down on the ground. He bent down and picked it up. He looked at it, his heart sank as he saw what the picture was. A black and white photograph of the man in his uniform smiling as a small boy sat on his shoulders, next to him stood a young woman.
Ichigo had always known that these "rice-powered bastards" were real people. Despite this, he found that thinking of them as less than human made them easier to kill, like a person swatting a fly. The little photo he held in his hands plainly demonstrated that this man was a real person; a person with a family. Ichigo flipped through the little book, he couldn't read the writing, but something inside told him that this was not communist propaganda. He found several other pictures, some were of the little boy and young woman, and others were of the man standing next to fellow soldiers and one picture was of the man and an older couple.
Ichigo felt a hand on his left shoulder. He looked over to see Urahara gazing at the pictures.
"Where'd you get the diary?" Urahara asked.
"Is that what this is?" Ichigo said.
"Yeah, I've seen books like these before. Filled with poetry, letters from home, pictures of loved ones, stuff like that." Urahara said in a grave tone.
"Kind of sad isn't it?" Ichigo said.
"Yeah, but what can you do? If we didn't kill him, he would have killed us." Urahara said with the slightest hint of remorse. "Come on, we're moving out."
Urahara walked back into the building, leaving Ichigo standing by the door.
Ichigo put the pictures back into the book. He walked over to the pile of bodies and brushed away the flies that had gathered. He took the small book and placed it into the pocket of the dead man, wiping away tears as he walked away.
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February 9, 1968; 952 local time; Cholon district, Saigon, Vietnam
The morning sun shone down from the partially clouded sky on to the Cholon district's many concrete buildings and dusty roads. The streets were deserted, most of the residents either fled the area or stayed indoors.
Ichigo's squad moved along the streets towards the forward command center. They moved along very close to the sides of the buildings. Gin was at the front, M-16 at the ready. Urahara behind him, his left breast pocket contained five cellophane-wrapped cigars, a parting gift from Shunsui, Ichigo and Renji stood behind him. Chad, Ganju, Kira, and Ishida were on the other side of the street hugging the walls of the buildings as well. Kira and Renji were issued M-16's a few days after arriving in Saigon. Despite Urahara's horror stories, they both found their new weapons to be strong and reliable.
Eventually they came to another building. The brick and stucco building was surrounded by a six foot wall, making an inner courtyard. The whole building was about one hundred and fifty square feet. There were bullet holes all over the walls and building. There were about five men total resting against the walls inside the courtyard. They looked dirty, tired, and empty. One of them clutched his weapon close nervously twitching and looking around, two others just sat there and smoked their cigarettes.
Urahara went inside the building and found two men sitting on crates at a crude table smoking cigarettes. The room was illuminated only by the large hole in the ceiling. The man on Urahara's right wore faded green army fatigues and a helmet that read "God created men, Mr. Colt made them equal", he had light skin, a somewhat muscular build, black hair and a five o'clock shadow. The man had a 1911 pistol holstered on each hip, and had two Colt "Python" .357 magnum revolvers in holsters near his armpits. An M-60 was propped up on his side of the table.
The man on the other side was dressed in camoflaged fatigues. Written on his helmet was the message "Stercus Accidit". His figure was slightly smaller than the other man's, he had a 1911 on his right hip and a large knife on his left. His M-16 was propped up on his side of the table. He had dark brown hair that seemed black due to the absence of sufficient light.
The two men looked up at Urahara.
"Howdy folks, you guys in Oscar company?" Urahara said resting his shotgun on his right shoulder.
"That's us, you with the replacements?" The man on the right responded blowing a cloud of smoke.
"Yes sir." Urahara said. "I'm Sandal-hat, the rest of my boys are outside."
"I'm Kira Tenaka, but call me Rusty. That's Gunz. Nice to meet you." The man on the left said pointing to the other man and shaking Urahara's hand.
"Heh heh heh, we used to call him Steely at Bootcamp." Gunz said shaking Urahara's hand after he finished shaking the other man's hand.
"Why do they call you Rusty now?" Urahara said turning back to the man on the left.
"I came back covered in dirt after our first mission, Gunz started shouting 'Hey! look everyone! Steely rusted!' I kicked his ass, but the name stuck." Rusty responded.
"If I recall correctly, you were the one who got the ass kicking." Gunz said, tossing the cigarette butt on the floor and stepping on it.
"No, I specifically remember you screaming like a little girl when I started beating you with that empty beer bottle." Rusty said.
"Oh, that ass kicking. I must be remembering the time you put the bugs in my SOS" Gunz said.
"I didn't put those in, the food here always has bugs and shit in it." Rusty said somewhat defensively.
The men continued to argue and Urahara chuckled to himself saying, "I think I'm gonna like it here."
Một mẩu nhà: literally "A piece of home" in Vietnamese, possibly out of syntax because I do not speak Vietnamese.
Cholon district: Saigon's "Chinatown" the scene of heavy and sporadic fighting for about two months after the initial Tet offensive.
Stercus Accidit: latin for "Shit Happens"
Author's notes: the origional M-16's had problems because of poor quality ammunition, poor manufacturing, and the practice of not providing cleaning kits. These problems were fixed by 1967, but the reputation for unreliablility remained.
The soil in Vietnam has a reddish tint to it, possibly due to high iron content.
The two new characters are other people's OC's
Gunz (Ikatsue) was willingly lent by b3y0nd, the writing on his helmet is an old frontier saying. This phrase is ment to reflect on the abundance of Colt products on his person.
Kira Tenaka was graciously lent by TFKeyes. If you read the "Marine" series of fics you might understand the wierd nickname.