Jacob Sneed
09-10-2013, 09:42 AM
The Last Patrol
"I guess, I guess I just never thought it would actually be like this. You know they don't tell you anything about killin' babies when you sign the papers."
"Well what did you expect private?"
The private shifted rather uncomfortably as he sat with his back against a soft wall of sand. The two men sat huddled in a dune, close enough that they could smell the fear resonating through the heat of each other’s bodies. Their rifles were clutched in their hands, fingers trembling and soaked with sweat. Every so often they passed back and forth a small cup of resin and rubbed it in their palms so their guns would not slip.
"I reckon I expected to fight, I knew that much, and fight damn hard too, but I thought I would know just who I was fightin'. Seems like those women, their babies and all them didn't have nothin to do with this war."
"We did what we were told, nothing more, and nothing less. In an army there has to be order, if we could decide which orders to follow and which orders we weren't so keen on I don't think this army would stand a fightin' chance no matter who we went up against."
"Yea I reckon you're right, still though, there's some things about today I'll never be able to get over."
"Do you think talkin about it is goin' to make a bit of difference?"
"Do you think trying to pretend I didn't see what I saw, and do what I did is going to make a lick of difference either?" The private turned his head sharply, it was dark but he still didn't want his patrol mate to see the anguish in his face although his pain was obvious in the every intonation of his voice.
"**** all private, I'm not sayin' what happened today didn't have no type of effect on me at all, but just think of where we'd be if we hadn't followed orders. Hell we'd either be on our way to a court marshal or worse shot dead then and there."
The other soldier passed the resin one more time. It was an act of significance which was not lost on the private. They needed to keep up the conversation to fight off the sleep, and help calm their already shot nerves, but the line of conversation ended then and there with that passing of the resin.
It was mutually understood, the soldier knew the private would not continue on about the happenings of that day.The resin was accepted graciously and applied.
"Hell I guess this here resin makes me and you the same color, your palms are probably just about as black as my skin now."
The soldier laughed in a low voice. "I suppose it does private, 'sides we ain't no different anyway. The way I see it you my brother same as the rest of the platoon."
"I see it the same way too." The private shifted positions again, rose up a little bit from where he was seated so he could see clearly above the dune and sat back down. "That's why this war makes ...well, I don't want to be the one questioning why we're out here and all but black, white, red, yellow skin it just doesn't seem to be no reason to fight a war over. Not since we've all done got a little more educated then we was before. Why ain't they my brothers the same as you?"
"Me and you don't live across an ocean and in this god forsaken hotter than hell country. Besides we ain't commies neither."
"That's true. Look at it this way though, in this world we livin in, I suppose a man might want certain nice things, maybe a watch, a car to pick his girl up in and such ...but beyond all of that we don't got too much more then what me and you got here."
"...and what you sayin me and you got?"
"Well I figure we just got me and you at the moment. Or that is to say we just got each other. Otherwise we'd end up dead real quick.""How old are you private?"
"19."
"I figure you ain't quite old enough to know the ways of the world yet, but you might be on to somethin there." The soldier offered the resin to the private once again."...you hear that?"
"Yea ..." The soldier lifted his head slightly above the dune, his eyes scanned the beach until he was satisfied they were alone."I'm tellin you I heard somethin a ways off but it's so damn dark on this beach here I can't see nothin same as you."
The private who had lifted himself slightly on his elbows with his rifle pointed across the beach and then sat back down. Both of the men relaxed slightly, the water was calm at the moment, they were a ways from the jungle in which their platoon had made camp. There should not have been too much noise on the beach but after hours of keeping watch the mind often plays tricks on itself. Noises that are not there often are the loudest, and the sounds that creep up on you, easily dismissed, are often the most real.
The two men shared the common bond of having survived a horror. Something they had actively participated in, having been ordered by their superiors but still all men have free will. They were men by law, but boys by the laws of wisdom. What they knew they had learned fast in the fields of battle lessons inscribed the cold lifeless eyes of both the innocent and the guilty they had slaughtered. Hesitate though, to judge them as monsters, for they knew not what they had done. The reprisal they suffered for their acts was just as vicious as the acts themselves.
This was their last patrol.
"I guess, I guess I just never thought it would actually be like this. You know they don't tell you anything about killin' babies when you sign the papers."
"Well what did you expect private?"
The private shifted rather uncomfortably as he sat with his back against a soft wall of sand. The two men sat huddled in a dune, close enough that they could smell the fear resonating through the heat of each other’s bodies. Their rifles were clutched in their hands, fingers trembling and soaked with sweat. Every so often they passed back and forth a small cup of resin and rubbed it in their palms so their guns would not slip.
"I reckon I expected to fight, I knew that much, and fight damn hard too, but I thought I would know just who I was fightin'. Seems like those women, their babies and all them didn't have nothin to do with this war."
"We did what we were told, nothing more, and nothing less. In an army there has to be order, if we could decide which orders to follow and which orders we weren't so keen on I don't think this army would stand a fightin' chance no matter who we went up against."
"Yea I reckon you're right, still though, there's some things about today I'll never be able to get over."
"Do you think talkin about it is goin' to make a bit of difference?"
"Do you think trying to pretend I didn't see what I saw, and do what I did is going to make a lick of difference either?" The private turned his head sharply, it was dark but he still didn't want his patrol mate to see the anguish in his face although his pain was obvious in the every intonation of his voice.
"**** all private, I'm not sayin' what happened today didn't have no type of effect on me at all, but just think of where we'd be if we hadn't followed orders. Hell we'd either be on our way to a court marshal or worse shot dead then and there."
The other soldier passed the resin one more time. It was an act of significance which was not lost on the private. They needed to keep up the conversation to fight off the sleep, and help calm their already shot nerves, but the line of conversation ended then and there with that passing of the resin.
It was mutually understood, the soldier knew the private would not continue on about the happenings of that day.The resin was accepted graciously and applied.
"Hell I guess this here resin makes me and you the same color, your palms are probably just about as black as my skin now."
The soldier laughed in a low voice. "I suppose it does private, 'sides we ain't no different anyway. The way I see it you my brother same as the rest of the platoon."
"I see it the same way too." The private shifted positions again, rose up a little bit from where he was seated so he could see clearly above the dune and sat back down. "That's why this war makes ...well, I don't want to be the one questioning why we're out here and all but black, white, red, yellow skin it just doesn't seem to be no reason to fight a war over. Not since we've all done got a little more educated then we was before. Why ain't they my brothers the same as you?"
"Me and you don't live across an ocean and in this god forsaken hotter than hell country. Besides we ain't commies neither."
"That's true. Look at it this way though, in this world we livin in, I suppose a man might want certain nice things, maybe a watch, a car to pick his girl up in and such ...but beyond all of that we don't got too much more then what me and you got here."
"...and what you sayin me and you got?"
"Well I figure we just got me and you at the moment. Or that is to say we just got each other. Otherwise we'd end up dead real quick.""How old are you private?"
"19."
"I figure you ain't quite old enough to know the ways of the world yet, but you might be on to somethin there." The soldier offered the resin to the private once again."...you hear that?"
"Yea ..." The soldier lifted his head slightly above the dune, his eyes scanned the beach until he was satisfied they were alone."I'm tellin you I heard somethin a ways off but it's so damn dark on this beach here I can't see nothin same as you."
The private who had lifted himself slightly on his elbows with his rifle pointed across the beach and then sat back down. Both of the men relaxed slightly, the water was calm at the moment, they were a ways from the jungle in which their platoon had made camp. There should not have been too much noise on the beach but after hours of keeping watch the mind often plays tricks on itself. Noises that are not there often are the loudest, and the sounds that creep up on you, easily dismissed, are often the most real.
The two men shared the common bond of having survived a horror. Something they had actively participated in, having been ordered by their superiors but still all men have free will. They were men by law, but boys by the laws of wisdom. What they knew they had learned fast in the fields of battle lessons inscribed the cold lifeless eyes of both the innocent and the guilty they had slaughtered. Hesitate though, to judge them as monsters, for they knew not what they had done. The reprisal they suffered for their acts was just as vicious as the acts themselves.
This was their last patrol.