All by myself

Driving around in my Chevy truck, the memories keep crashing around in my head. The memories won’t go away. There's only one way to end this. This guilt that's been eating me away. It's just me and the memories. My own father doesn't listen to me like I want. He doesn’t understand. The ones that do understand are either buried or with their own success'. I'm just driving around, I see the YMCA. I’ll drive there, work out maybe? No, I’m not going to work out. I grab the rope from the back of my truck, the memories pounding into me. Kiowa in the filth bath, I tried to grab his shoe, it slipped. I just let go. I’m walking to the gym, I have already written the letter to O’Brien, explaining, telling him about the story he needs to write. One more step to go. Putting the rope up, and ending it all. All the memories gone, it’ll finally be an end to the madness. Sorry dad, those medals you liked, I didn’t think it was worth it. I’m sorry Kiowa.

Just me, myself, and my thoughts

Driving around, it's been three years since I got out of Vietnam. I'm starting to remember everything that's happened, playing checkers with Dobbins, Kiowa..I'm just driving around with these memories inside my brain. I have nobody to talk to about them, my father only cares about his precious medals that his son achieved. I shouldn't have gotten those medals. Is it bravery that got me the medals or the fact I was in the war for so long. I could honestly care less for the medals. That was his thing, the whole time I was in Vietnam. These memories are crashing into me like a car crash. I can just picture if I talked about it to Sally Kramer. She wouldn't get it. Nobody seems to. I could have saved Kiowa, if i was so brave to earn those medals, why didn't I get through the terrible smell to save him? These questions are coming back at me, racking through my brain. I wish I had someone to talk to about this. It's so lonely, so empty. Just driving around the lake with the memories, of what could have been.

Teammates

Looking at my teammates, my partners in this war, I get a sense of uneasiness. It’s a rainy day, raining so badly and getting worse. The smell is nasty, possibly worse then the rain. The dead fish smell, the way some person screamed it was the village toilet was unforgettable. The way the field exploded and the scream we heard, that was Kiowa, I knew. Watching Kiowa submerge into the scum. I will never forget it, the way bubbles were popping up where his head should have been, I grabbed his boot, I tried but as I could taste and smell the filth, I let go. I shouldn’t have let go. He was my teammate, I gave up on him. I shouldn’t have let him go. Flares were going off around me, leaving me alone, watching Kiowa’s boot slowly sink into the muck where the rest of his body lay. I shouldn’t have let go. I know this will forever haunt me, knowing that I let my teammates down, I let Kiowa die. He just disappeared into the waste and water. I just let him go.

Just Watching, waiting.

I'm just watching, watchings as things pass by. The moment Lavender was killed, the moment Lemon was killed. I saw what impacts that had happened to others. I saw Lieutenant Jimmy Cross cover himself in guillt. I could see when Kat Riley, tortured that buffalo because his best friend had expoded into a tree. Some people take grief differently. As i saw Tim O'Brien and Dave Jensen taking Lemon from the tree he exploded on, Jensen was singing "Lemon Tree." That really blew me off. Watching Kat write Lemon's sister a letter, calling him a great guy, practically his soul mate. He started tearin' up when he wrote it too. He took his grief out that way too. The sadness, then the anger at the buffalo. I'm just watching as things are going. Not really sayin' nothing. Watching my team mates die, and cover themselves in grief. Is this what we have to live like? Another grief instant, not a death but it could have been as much. When Fossie brought his girl here, why he would bring a girl into a war is beyond me, but she left him. Left him for the greenies. You could see the grief, hear the grief in his voice. I dont ever want to be like that. She went crazy, but she sure was a nice lady.