It was a late night at a bar where five men, four of them veterans of Vietnam, were sitting at a round table. The four men were talking to Micheal Goodwin, an author.
"Maybe you're familiar with the Michael Herr Line, from Dispatches?" Goodwin asked them."Ah, "I think Vietnam was what we had instead of happy childhoods"?".
"Nope." Said Capa, an old, pudgy man who wore glasses and was nearly bald.
"Oh. Well, It's what he was saying there, it kind of ties in with the theme of what I'm writing. All these kids who leave one America, an innocent America, and come back to a different one. And that loss...they bring it home with them if you see what I'm saying, and neither they nor we are ever the same again.
"That's what I'm hoping you gentlemen can help me with. Because so far you're the only members of fourth platoon, kilo company, third battalion of the twenty-sixth marine regiment that I've been able to track down. In other words, of Frank Castle's first command."
Frank Castle, who was now the Punisher, had made himself known to the world. Killing Mafia crime families, drug dealers, and any other criminals.
"That's why I'm so so grateful Mister Molland for arranging this tonight because when I approached him-"
"Hold on." Fish interrupted. Fish had grey hair and a grey beard."He said you were a writer, but...Micheal Goodwin...why do I know that name?"
"Well, It's possible you read my book? Valley Forge, Valley Forge?" Goodwin asked.
Fish snapped his fingers."That's it."
"Did you...?"
Fish shrugged."It was okay."
"I heard some of it was pretty brutal," Capa said."Like a horror story, someone told me."
"Well...It's hard to write about the massacre of an entire marine firebase without..." Goodwin thought about his brother, Stevie Goodwin, and how he had been killed at Valley Forge along with the rest of the soldiers there, except for Frank Castle.
"That's what you're here for, Mister Goodwin?" Asked Capa."You want to write another horror story?"
Dryden, who had been a sergeant during the Vietnam war, stood up."I got to go."
"Wait. Don't." Said Molland.
Capa crossed his arms."Huh."
"We could hear him out...but..." Said Fish.
"Give him a chance." Molland pleaded.
"Why?" Dryden asked.
"I called around, talked to some people he talked to before. They said he was pretty fair. And I wondered if maybe we...owed...?" Molland said.
Dryden was silent for a moment.
Molland looked at the bartender."We got a while, Top?"
The bartender named Top smiled as he cleaned a cup."Long as you need."
Dryden sat back down.
"Hmh." Fish grumbled."You know, one thing I never understand is this idea people like you have about America being innocent. When were we innocent?"
"Well..." Goodwin tried to answer.
"Look at what happened to the Indians on the plains. Look at the corruption in the building of the cities, It's unbelievable. And long before 'Nam, there was what we did to the people of the Philippines, back at the turn of the last century. Read about it." Fish told him.
Goodwin nodded."I have. I guess I was thinking more about the innocence we had about ourselves. I'm of that generation too, remember, I was just too young for the draft. But that isn't...okay, I wrote a book about firebase Valley Forge and the Punisher. Castle sees his family killed in front of him, and I don't think It's hard to find the roots of what he does next in that third tour of duty.
"But what about his first tour? The one he returns from at the end of 'sixty-eight and nothing else happens? The one where, just maybe, he still has a chance?
"You see, It's not just about the war and what was lost to it. It's not just about the country, either. It's about the guys who came home. Well, he came home from his time in Vietnam, the time that changes everything about America. He had a life before the Punisher, and I've been thinking about this ever since my book...I...the way I see it, all I did was write the ending. I never wrote the story."
"That was how I first saw them. Coming down the hill in the sunlight of the Song Ve Valley. Like they had all the time in the world." Commander Ly Quang told Colonel Letrong Giap.
It was nighttime as the two talked. Ly was sitting on a fallen tree."I was visiting my family. My little sister said I was a war hero. She was so very proud of me. My mother just looked old and sad. In truth, by then I hadn't even fired a shot in anger. When I saw the black rifles on the hillside, my instinct was to fight. But my mother grabbed my weapon, held it tight. I shouted at her to release it. Took my eyes off my father for a second. He was old but he was strong.
"He dragged me to the pit beneath our kitchen, where he stored the rice for winter. Gagged and bound me. Me, the war hero, and dropped me in. Secured the door above me with a heavy chest. I heard him tell my sister to throw my weapon down the well. A minute later, mother said, "They're here." There was an interpreter who spoke to father for them. He said there had been trouble south. That our village harbored the guerillas after the attacks. Father was bewildered. The interpreter translated his reply. One of the Americans laughed.
"After that, there was nothing I could do but listen. It lasted an hour. A thousand million years in an hour.
"Father's last act was to push the chest off the door above my head. Of course, that left his body lying on the door, lifting him was easier. I found Linh and mother naked with their ears sliced off. Father's too. I searched the silent village and found that scene repeated inside every single home. Something caught my eye and I looked up in time to catch a final glimpse of them, just before they disappeared beyond the hill. Shallowed in the sunlight. Dark shapes moving steadily. All the time in the world."
"It..." Giap finally started to talk when she was done telling the story."In the song Ve It was routine for them. An aggressive force, charged with counterinsurgency."
"You said you knew my history. Did you know about my lai?" Ly asked him.
"Some weeks ago. Just after it occurred." Giap said.
"They did it again. Five hundred men, women, and children. I heard about it only yesterday. Brother Colonel, did you truly think tonight was some treat that I could not resist?"
"Ah. My apologies, sister."
"You want me to be a trainer, a leader. You want me to cut out my emotions, become a hard, cool-headed, ruthless instrument. Can't you see these are the things I carry with me, always?"
"Forgive me. I have been fighting for a long time. The Japanese and then the french. Now the Americans." Giap said, remembering how he had kept Nick Fury alive and sent him back to the CIA.
"I have come to see war as science. I do excise emotion. I strive to use assets and employ force for maximum effect. My lai was a sloppy, disorganized. counterproductive mess born of overreaction and frustration. Typically American. But I have ordered worse." Giap admitted.
"Yeah, It's them." Frank Castle said as the rain hit the dead soldier's bodies that were in the water.
Frank Castle and his soldiers were standing in a river as it rained on them. Thunder rumbled in the clouds.
"The fuck's going on with the weather?" Said Molland, looking up.
Suddenly, lightning nearly hit them.
"Shit! We need to find some shelter right fuckin' now!" Yelled Fish, seeing more lightning.
But before they could even move into the jungle, lightning hit them and they saw nothing but darkness.
"When we woke up...well, that's where it got really weird," Molland said to Goodwin.