Gustav Hasford - The Short-Timers

Your reaction to your own death is nothing more than a highly intensified curiosity.

A hand presses you down. You wonder if you should try to do something about your broken legs. You think that it's possible that you don't have any legs. Tons of ocean water, dark and cold and populated by monsters, are crushing you. You try to raise your head. Hands hold you down. You fight. You fling your arms. Strong hands search for damage in your body.

"Legs..."

You cough up spiders.

On the ground beside you is a Marine without a head. Exhibit A, formerly a person, now two hundred pounds of fractured meat. The Marine without a head is on his back. His face has been knocked off. The top of his skull has been torn back, with the soft brain inside. The jawbone and bottom teeth are intact. In the hands of the Marine without a head is an M-60 machine gun, locked there forever by rigor mortis. His finger in on the trigger. His canvas jungle boots are muddy.

You look at the dried mud on the jungle boots of the Marine without a head and you are stunned that his feet look so much like your own.

You reach out. You touch his hand.

Something stings your arm.

Suddenly, you are very tired. You are breathing hard from the running. Your heart is beating so hard that it seems to want to tear its way out of your body. Through the center of your heart there is a star-shaped bullet hole.

Hands touch you. Gentle hands. "You're okay, jarhead. No sweat. I'm Doc Jay. Can you hear me? You can trust me, Marine. I got magic hands."

"No," you say. "NO!" You try to explain to the hands that part of you is missing in action. You want the hands to find the missing part; you don't want your missing part to be left behind. But you cannot speak. Your mouth won't work.

You sleep. You trust the hands that are holding you, the hands that are lifting you up.

In your dope dream of death you are an enlistment poster nailed to a black wall: THE MARINE CORPS BUILDS MEN--BODY--MIND--SPIRIT.

You feel yourself breaking up into three pieces...you hear strange voices...

"What's wrong ?" one voice says, confused and frightened. "What's wrong ?"

"Who's there?"

"What?"

"Who's there?"

"I'm Mind. Are you--"

"Affirmative. I'm his Body. I'm not feeling well..."

"This is utterly ridiculous," interjects a third voice. "This can't be happening."

"Who said that?" Mind demands. "Body? That you?"

"I said it, fool. You may call me Spirit."

Body sneers. "I don't believe either of you."

Mind speaks slowly: "Now, we've got to be logical about this. Our man is down. We've got to get organized."

Body whimpers. "Listen, you guys, that's me lying there--not you. You don't know what it's like."

Mind says, "Look, you moron, we're all in this together. If he goes, we all go."

"Is he..." Body can't say the word. "I've got to survive."

"No," Mind observes. "Not necessarily. They play this game. I'm not sure we are allowed to interfere."

Body is horrified. "What kind of 'game'?"

"I'm not sure. Something about rules. They have a lot of rules."

Spirit says, "This guy pisses me off. I'm not going back."

Mind says, "You have to go back."

"On the contrary," says Spirit. "I do as I please. You two have no control over me."

"Forget him," says Body.

Mind insists, "But Spirit must return with us."

" No . We don't need him."

Mind considers the situation. "Perhaps Spirit has a valid argument. Perhaps I shouldn't go back either..."

Body is frantic. "NO! PLEASE...."

"Yet, actually, nothing would be achieved by not going back. Our actions will not affect their game in any event. Losing one man won't change the game one way or the other. In fact, losing men seems to be the whole point of the game. We must be practical. Come along, Body, we're going back."

Spirit says, "Tell the man I'm missing in action."

In your dream you call for Chaplain Charlie. You met the Navy chaplain when you interviewed him for a feature article you were writing. Chaplain Charlie was an amateur magician. With his magic, Chaplain Charlie entertained Marines in sick bays and distributed spiritual tourniquets to men who were still alive, but weaponless. To brutal, godless children Chaplain Charlie spoke about how God is merciful, despite appearances, about how the Ten Commandments lack detail because when you're writing on stone tablets with lightning bolts you're got to be brief, about how the Free World will conquer Communism with aid of God and a few Marines, and about free fish. One day a Vietnamese child booby-trapped Chaplain Charlie's black bag of tricks. Chaplain Charlie reached in and pulled out a bright ball of death...

"Hey, hit the deck, leatherneck, we're moving."

"What--?" I recognize the rooms I'm in. I remember the room from an earlier visit to Hue. I'm in the Palace of Perfect Peace in the Forbidden City.

Cowboy punches my arm. "Okay, Joker, stop acting. We know you're not dead."

I sit up. I'm on a canvas med-evac stretcher. "There it is. I did it! Number one! I got my first heart."

Rafter Man says, "A Purple Heart?"

Cowboy laughs. "Tough titty, you poge. No heart."

I pat myself with my hands. "The hell you say. Where am I hit?"

Rafter Man says, "You been out for hours. Doc Jay said you got blown up by a B-40. A rocket-propelled grenade. But you only got the concussion. Some other guy got the shrapnel."

"Well," I say, "that sounds like a lifer-type thing to do."

Animal Mother grunts and spits. Animal Mother spits a lot because he thinks it makes him look tough. "Lifers never get wasted. Just the ones I frag, that's all."

Donlon takes a step toward Animal Mother. Donlon is glaring at Animal Mother. Donlon starts to say something, then decides against it.

Rafter Man says, "Doc Jay gave you some morphine. You were trying to punch him out."

"There it is," I say. "I'm mean, even when I'm unconscious. But that's some very good shit, that morphine."

Cowboy pushes his gray Marine-issue glasses up on his nose. "I could use a hit of something myself. I wish we had time to smoke some grass."

I say, "Hey, bro, who's on your program?"

Cowboy shakes his head. "Mr. Shortround is KIA." Cowboy pulls a red bandana from his back pocket and wipes his grimy face. "The platoon radioman was down. Some redneck from Alabama. I forget his name. Took a sniper round through the knee. The Skipper went out to get him. A frag got him. A frag got them both. At least..." Cowboy turns to look at Animal Mother. "At least, that's how Mother tells it, and he was walking point."

I shake the cobwebs out of my head and pick up my gear. "Where's my Mattel?"

Cowboy hands me a grease gun. "Your Mattel got wasted. Use this." He hands me a canvas bag containing half-a-dozen grease-gun magazines.

I check out the grease gun. "This thing is obsolete."

Cowboy shrugs. "I souvenired it off a wasted tanker." Cowboy scratches his face. "I got a new K-bar. And I souvenired Mr. Shortround's pistol."

"Where's Craze?"

Cowboy leads me outside a long row of body bags and ponchos stuffed with human junk.

We stand over Craze as Cowboy says, "Craze did a John Wayne. He finally went berserk. Shot BB's at a gook machine gun. The BB's bounced off the gook gunners. You should have seen it. Craze was laughing like a happy little kid. Then that slope machine gun blew him away."

I nod. "Anybody else?"

Cowboy checks his weapon, snaps the bolt to see that it's working smoothly. "T.H.E. Rock. A sniper. Popped his head off. I'll have to tell you about it. Right now we got a job to do. We got to find that sniper. I'm personally going to waste that gook son-of-a-bitch. T.H.E. Rock was the first guy to get wasted after I took the squad. He's my responsibility."