A Vietnam: A Short Story

There was a calm wind blowing through the still wet grass from an earlier storm. Animals of all sorts could be spotted peacefully grazing in the distance, every once and awhile swatting their heads back trying to keep away the ferocious bugs biting at their flesh. The scenery would distract me for a short period of time, but then smoke rising in the distance or a single rifle shot would remind me of where I was. It was the first day of May, only one more month before I go home, leaving this dreadful country known as Vietnam behind. At daybreak, we began a treacherous trip through the infested jungles of Vietnam. The sun was relentless, shining on our worn backs.The sweat dripping off my stained face only attracted more bugs. The earth under …show more content…
Everything was different, still, it seemed as if we were the only ones in the entire jungle. Suddenly, our point man, a young private named Jack from Maine on his first tour, threw his hand up, signaling for us to stop. Everyone began searching their surroundings with their eyes wondering why Jack had signaled us to stop. Just as he dropped his hand and took another step, the world began to blow up. He had stepped on a cartridge trap, the bullet shot up through his leg and ripped out through his hip, grazing my skull right above my left ear. His body fell backwards bringing me to the ground with him. Right as the trap went off, hundreds of Viet Mihn started firing from concealed hids, but I couldn’t hear anything. My entire head was ringing and a screaming pain was leaving me helpless. As soon as I lifted my hand to feel the blood gushing out of my head, another soldier pulled me up and started screaming, “pull him up and take cover …show more content…
I pulled the private into a shallow ditch, it wasn’t good cover but it would have to work. I made sure he would be ok before I sprinted back to my group to help. Out of the twelve of us walking, four were already injured, and one was killed too close to the enemy to retrieve his body. Just as quick as the firefight started to stopped. We jumped on this quickly but carefully. It was hard, but I managed to retrieve our fallen comrade from the frontline. As I approached his body I realized that he had the radio, and it had been shot to pieces, some of which were nowhere in sight. Now we were 10 miles away from the closest ally bunker, in a jungle with what seemed like 100 enemy fighters. As we regrouped, I checked the side of my head, the bleeding had not stopped. It seemed to be worse.The gash cut in onefifth of an inch into my skull. With my adrenaline pumping, the pain was not there but now, after the fighting was over, it made me want to scream. The surrounding air reeked of gunpowder, I could even taste the bitterness of burnt powder mixed with the metallic taste my blood brought me. The surrounding area was ripped apart small trees had fallen down, brass casing glimmered in the mud, and there was no longer any animals around. Behind me, on the opposite side of the original fight, I heard a dull thud and a snap of a twig. Then, bullets started