The door is locked. The mother knocks twice, but there is no answer. She knocks four more times, each rap on the wood with her manicured nails more intense than the last; the sinking feeling in her stomach deepens. Knocking turns to banging, banging to screaming, and screaming to destruction as the mother breaks down the door. Her son lies on the floor, white capsules surrounding his cold body. The rest is a blur. In the following years she does not sleep at night, guilt haunting her as a ghost would a man in a fairytale. During those sleepless nights, she often thinks of what she could’ve done to prevent her son’s death. Perhaps if she was less distracted with work he would have lived; maybe if she had been more cautious about his friends
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Prior to this, Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk were enemies: “One morning in late July, while we were out on patrol near LZ Gator, Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen got into a fistfight. It was about something stupid - a missing jackknife - but even so the fight was vicious” (59). Eventually they make up and slowly begin to trust each other. Gradually Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk become good friends, and they make a pact that if one of them got a “wheelchair wound” the other would kill him (62). Later, Lee Strunk stepped on a rigged mortar round and his left was blown off. Lee asks Dave Jensen not to kill him. Jensen complies but feels guilty afterwards, believing that he broke the pact and left Lee Strunk in misery and life-long pain: “Later we heard that Strunk died somewhere over Chu Lai, which seemed to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight” (63). Even though Jensen complies with the direct wishes of Strunk, he still feels guilty for not complying with the pact made between the two. He fears that he has left Strunk to live with a “wheelchair wound,” a source of great misery. When Strunk dies, Jensen is relieved. In the end, despite a direct request from Strunk not to end his life, Jensen is still affected by the far-reaching theme of guilt, no matter the rationale behind letting Strunk
Prior to this, Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk were enemies: “One morning in late July, while we were out on patrol near LZ Gator, Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen got into a fistfight. It was about something stupid - a missing jackknife - but even so the fight was vicious” (59). Eventually they make up and slowly begin to trust each other. Gradually Dave Jensen and Lee Strunk become good friends, and they make a pact that if one of them got a “wheelchair wound” the other would kill him (62). Later, Lee Strunk stepped on a rigged mortar round and his left was blown off. Lee asks Dave Jensen not to kill him. Jensen complies but feels guilty afterwards, believing that he broke the pact and left Lee Strunk in misery and life-long pain: “Later we heard that Strunk died somewhere over Chu Lai, which seemed to relieve Dave Jensen of an enormous weight” (63). Even though Jensen complies with the direct wishes of Strunk, he still feels guilty for not complying with the pact made between the two. He fears that he has left Strunk to live with a “wheelchair wound,” a source of great misery. When Strunk dies, Jensen is relieved. In the end, despite a direct request from Strunk not to end his life, Jensen is still affected by the far-reaching theme of guilt, no matter the rationale behind letting Strunk