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Slowly, painfully, he became aware that he was awake. His eyes hurt. He wasn't sure, but he didn't think they
were even open. Even so, he saw flashing lights, and each flash brought a stabbing pain. Each stabbing pain throbbed
back from his eyes into his head, radiating in all directions.
He thought about opening his eyes, but he was afraid. He was sure it would hurt even more.
Instead, he tried to concentrate on the situation. Trying to think hurt, too, but he decided it was necessary. He
realized dispassionately that he didn't know where he was.
It also occurred to him, a little less dispassionately, that he didn't know who he was. He thought that if he
opened his eyes, he might be able to figure out where he was; but he wasn't ready for that. He wasn't ready for
the pain. He listened. It was quiet. He strained his ears for any sound that would give him a clue to where he was.
He heard nothing. He wondered idly if he'd gone deaf. Acrid odors invaded his nostrils. It smelled like the
range, the firing range where he'd gone in basic training to qualify on his rifle. But this was stronger, like many
more people had been firing their weapons. That odor dominated, but tamer, less invasive smells snuck through,
too. Strangely, the subtler odors made him think back to basic training, too, only this this time it was back to
KP, kitchen duty. They were the odors found in a kitchen.
Grasping irrationally on a tiny idea, he noted the fact that he enjoyed KP about as much as he enjoyed the range - both
were a pain in the tail.
He began to hear subtle rustlings as if there was something moving about, people or something else. Then he heard
whispering, so he guessed that they were in fact people. But he couldn't understand the whispers he heard. They
were in a strange language. He couldn't understand what they were saying. He was even more reluctant to open his
eyes now on the chance that he'd be forced to confront something he couldn't deal with. Then he heard grunts and
knocking sounds as if someone was striking something. On occasion, a groan would follow the grunt and the knock. The
rustling came closer. A grunt, a knock, and a groan came from somewhere directly in front of him.
He decided that, perilous as it might be, he could wait no longer. He had to try to see what was going on. He allowed
his eyelids to open a slit. The tiny light that admitted immediately sent the flash and the stabbing pain throughout
his head. When that ebbed and his eyes focused, he saw a face no more than three inches from his nose. He didn't
immediately recognize the face. It was Caucasian and that seemed significant to him for some reason. It was also a
man, and the eyes were open and blank. A trickle of dried blood extended from the nose and the mouth down his cheek
onto the floor. The man was obviously dead.
He opened his eyes a little wider, and the pain became a little more intense. Without knowing why, he still resisted
the urge to lift his head or move his body. But opening his eyes just a little increased his field of vision
sufficiently to tell him he was in an extremely cluttered place. It seemed to be a large room with long, mostly
overturned tables and chairs. His first impression was that it was like his high school cafeteria where he had eaten
lunch five days a week until - when? When? he asked himself. Until he graduated a couple of years ago, he
thought, and joined the Air Force.
Then it all came rushing back to him. He was Airman First Class Bobby McAllister, and he was in the chow hall at Bien
Hoa Airbase, Republic of Vietnam. The last thing he remembered he'd been eating breakfast with his buddy,
Airman Second Class Johnny Newton, when all hell broke loose. There were several loud explosive sounds close
together, parts of the sheet metal ceiling started falling down around them, and furniture started flying around. He
remembered getting all these impressions rapid fire, and then everything went blank. Next thing he knew was when he
returned to consciousness with the flashing light and stabbing pain in his head. Then he opened his eyes to
Johnny Newton's lifeless face.
Rushing back with all that was also the knowledge that he was probably in great danger. That seemed a bit unfair. He
was not yet quite 20 years old, certainly too young to die on a cluttered chow hall floor all the way around the world
from everything important to him. Then it occurred to him that he was older than Johnny Newton, certainly only by a
few months, but Johnny was dead already. Even so, the only reason he was here was that he didn't know what else he
wanted to do when he got out of high school. More relevant, the only reason he was here was that Mary Anne Lofton told
him she was going to the County Fair with Robert Hunsucker.
She'd been his steady girl all through high school; but now that they were out of school, she thought they should
see other people to be sure what they wanted to do before they made a permanent commitment to each other. He'd
showed her good that he could make a commitment. That was the only reason he was here.
The movement he'd sensed earlier seemed to be coming closer. He knew now that the whispering was Vietnamese, but
he still didn't understand what they were saying. He'd been incountry only a little over a month, and the only
words he'd picked up had been the few you used to talk to the girls in the GI bars in town. He tried to scan the chow
hall without moving his head. He could see black clad men across the room, moving slowly between overturned tables,
bending over what he suspected to be American bodies, even though he could not see them. A couple of times, when they
straightened up, they plunged the barrels of their weapons toward the floor. Damn, he thought, they've got bayonets.
For some reason, he'd thought the Viet Cong didn't use weapons with bayonets.It became clear to him though that these Viet Cong were
inspecting American bodies scattered about the chow hall.
They were rifling through pockets for anything of value, cigarettes, jewelry, greenbacks for the black market. It
also became clear that if they sensed any life in the bodies they were searching, they plunged their bayonets into them
just to be sure.
The rustling sounds came nearer. He narrowed his eyelids but allowed the little slit to remain. Through that slit,
he saw a hand grasp Johnny Newton's shirt and pull him over onto his back. After a couple of minutes, the unseen
Viet Cong seemed to be finished with Johnny and straightened up. He didn't bother to use his bayonet.
Bobby felt the hand now tugging at his shirt front, trying to roll him over onto his back. The Viet Cong rifle was
right in front of his face. Bobby grabbed the rifle barrel bringing a surprised yelp from the enemy soldier. He
twisted the rifle around and it came free from the Cong's hand. Bobby was too close to the man to try to fire the
weapon, so he plunged it forward and buried the bayonet in the Cong's stomach. For the first time, he saw the
enemy's face. It was frozen in a death mask mix of surprise and pain. The body slipped to the floor and,
duplicating the actions of the Viet Cong soldiers, Bobby plunged the bayonet into him one more time just to be sure.
The yelp from the soldier he'd just killed got the attention of several of the other Viet Cong in the chow
hall. When they figured out what had happened, they began firing their weapons at Bobby. As he ducked, he heard the
impacts all around him as the bullets struck the furniture and the floor. He also heard another yelp as one of the
bullets whizzed by his ear and struck another Viet Cong behind him. He crouched low and began running toward where
he guessed the chow hall's side door should be. He heard bullets whizzing all around him, but none hit him as he
cleared the building.
As he burst out of the chow hall and ran toward the nearest cover, the Motor Pool, he suddenly realized that there were
bullets coming at him from the front, also. Before he could figure out what was happening, he heard a voice shouting in
a language he did understand, "Cease fire, cease fire."
There was a second's pause, then "Cease fire, dammit, that's an American."
The firing in front of him stopped. The firing behind him had stopped, too. He ran to the Motor Pool wall and dropped
behind it. He was immediately surrounded by men in US Army uniforms. Their ranking noncommissioned officer knelt over
him. "You okay, Airman?" he asked.
"I'm downright outstanding now, Sergeant," Bobby said. "Who are you?"
"Special Forces. We heard that there was a job for us here. If you're okay, I guess we'd better get to it."
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