M.I.A.

I pace around the kitchen. Shocked. My whole body is shaking. The curls in my hair starts to frizz, the make up on my face begins to run as the tears stream down my cheeks. Why me? Why is this happening to him? He told me everything is going to be okay…

I turn to find Mr. Rodgers at the kitchen table trying to comfort his wife as she rereads the letter. She continues to bawl. She looks up at me, and hands the lifeless letter back to the man who came in uniform. I freeze dead in my tracks and turn to the man.

“This can’t be happening. Is this true?”

“I’m afraid it is dear. We don’t send these letters out for the hell of it.”

I slump down next to Mrs. Rodgers. She sways over to take a hold my hand. My eyes meet hers. We hold a gaze for quite some time, knowing that we both miss Raymond as much as the other. I begin to think.

My mind is swarming with thoughts, and ideas. Two voices come alive in my head.

“But what about school?”

“Nah don’t worry about it. You’re going to school to be a nurse, this is in your field! You know he’s out there. You’ll regret it if you don’t go.”

“But–”

“Just go! Say something before the goddamn man leaves. Hurry!”

I bounce up a little. My eyes flutter around the room as I gather my thought. Lightly I release Mrs. Rodgers hand, and I pull my chair closer to the table where the military man is lounging about.

“Sign me up as a nurse… Now please.”

His brow arches up, and his glare burns. He stiffly bends up and rests his forearms against the table.

His lips part, “ You wha-?”

“Sign me up in the draft as a nurse. How hard is that to understand? “

“Hun, Nam is no place for a young girl like yourself.”

“Listen here, and listen closely. I’m eighteen, I’m currently working on becoming a nurse, I’m the highest in my class… don’t go starting on crap like that! Now get those damn papers from your vehicle, and let’s get started. I know you have them, all y’all carry them around anymore.”

He pauses, and leans back.

“Is this really what you want?’

“Did I stutter? Just be happy that someone is willing to go.”

He raises his body out of the chair, and trails for the door. A hand lands on my shoulder, the same one from the pair that lifted me up the side of the bus to kiss Raymond farewell. I cock my head over my shoulder to face him. He sighs.

“Maureen… Raymond wouldn’t want you putting your life at risk to go search for him. Please don’t go. Please stay here with us.”

I purse my lips. The room becomes gloomy and sinister.

“I have to go. I want to go. I know he’d feel that way but right now, I’m more worried about how I’d feel if I didn’t go. I’m sorry, but I’m going no matter what, I don’t care what anyone thinks.”

I stand up out of my chair.

Maybe that will make it look like I’m dead set on going.

His hand slides from my shoulder to my hand. He takes my hand with both of his. Just like Raymond, his hands are are tough, and calloused from working. But at the same time they are warm and welcoming.

“Okay Mo, if that’s really want you want. You’ve just been around so much that we’ve considered you our own daughter. You’ve done nothing but make Ray’s life better… Along with ours–”
I wrap my arms around his waist and I bury my head into his chest. He instantly closes his arms around me. Just like Raymond, his body moves the same, big and muscular, but at the same time, warm and loving.

Time passes, and eventually the military man returns with the papers. I settle down in the chair next to him. I sign one paper after another, question after question, signature after signature. God I didn’t know it took so much to sign up. After a while I begin to smell alcohol. I eventually learned that I don’t have to go boot camp or any sorts of training due to the dire needs of nurses and doctors.

The longer we sit there, the smell of alcohol gets stronger.

Soon I figure out that it’s flowing from the military man’s mouth and fills the room. I stare at the man. He’s probably in his early thirty. His hair looks like snow. He turns and stares back. His lips move but I can’t hear what he’s saying. Tiny little spots and scars rest on the bridge of his nose and cheeks. His knee bounces as if he’s a rabbit in need of a smoke. The chair screeches when he turns to face me. He flails his hand infront of my face… I snap out of my daze.

“What? I’m sorry.”

He chuckles, “ It’s all good. Your set to go. You leave tomorrow.”

“That early?”

“Yes ma’am.” he grins.

“Wow…”

He stands so I follow his lead and stand.

“Well I must be on my way. Thank you for deciding to serve for your country.”

He reaches out his hand to me, and I take it. He smirks, and winks. He releases, he salutes, turns, and walks out of the house. All the information that I needed was on the papers, and I already knew where the bus stop was.

The rest of the day passed by fast, when the man left, I went instantly to Raymond’s room, which we now share and packed my bags. I walk out of the bedroom, into the kitchen, to help Mrs.

Rodgers prepare dinner, steak and potatoes.

We settle down for dinner, and we bow our heads to give thanks. We begin to eat, and we exchange small talk. Mrs. Rodgers and harping at me to eat more, but I can’t. I’m nervous but I’m not. I just want to find Raymond. How am I going to find him if he’s held captive? I’m going to have to find a way to sneak out as a combat medic. That’s such a dumb idea.

“Maureen, dear do you want any more of your steak?”

Mrs. Rodgers is gathering the dishes.
I look up and nod my head no. She takes takes my plate and goes to the sink. She walks back to the table, drags a chair over and sits down next to me.

“You don’t have to go. You can change your mind you know.”

“But I have to. I can’t just stay here, when he’s out who knows where being tortured, and left to–”

Mr. Rodgers adds in, “ Maureen you’re a women what will you be able to do? It’s not worth it.”

“I will figure out whenever I get there. Don’t try to change my mind, because I’m going.”

The chair screams against the kitchen floor as I push myself away from the table, I storm to the bedroom, and crash into the bed.

I’m stiff, and on the wrong side of the bed. I look outside and it’s pitch black. The knot in my shoulder twists and tightens. I can’t fall back asleep, so I roll onto my back.

Nope didn’t help.

I roll onto my stomach.

Screw this.

Planting my feet on the ice cold floor, I head to the bathroom. I take a glimpse at the clock, and to my surprise it’s four- thirty, so I hop into the shower.

The hot water runs down my back, as if it’s washing away my sins. I feel a bit of relief.

I walk out of the bedroom dressed and prepared. My hair pulled back with a white hair band, my glasses resting on the bridge of my nose, and a simple blue dress that goes a bit past my knees. I have a suitcase in one hand, and my purse in the other. I head out to Mr. Rodgers’ 1955 Bel-Air, where they are waiting for me. Before I close the door of the house, I take a moment to look around the empty house one last time.

The ride to the pick up area was short, but full of conversation. The Rodgers insist on writing to me once a week, and they want me to write back so they know I’m alright. I never thought somebody would ever care about me in a parental way like they do. It’s a very foreign feeling to me, but I love it. Whenever we got to the bus stop, Mr. Rodgers gathered my stuff out of the trunk and took it to load it on the bus. Mrs. Rodgers said her speech about being careful, don’t talk to strangers, and made me promise to come home alive. That was a hard promise because I have no clue myself what will happen. Mr. Rodgers came to get me and escorted me to the bus, we said our goodbyes, and to the back of the bus I went. I gaze across the bus, and there’s more men than women.

Whenever everybody was loaded on the bus, we were told once again, that we will not be going to any sort of boot camp or training. We were going straight to the Richmond Airport, to be sent off to Vietnam. Our units were already decided, they were the busiest ones, that are in the most need of medics, and to make thing worse, they were the ones closest to the front line.
Great… Just what I wanted to hear. How the hell do they expect people who aren’t very experienced to learn everything in the first few days of being there? Yes, I’m a woman, and I know that this isn’t very lady like, but I’m scared s***less!

The bus ride itself was about two and a half hours. It was jam packed, and hot. We all talked here and there, but most of the time, it was silent. Most of the the men that were there were already done with boot camp, in uniform, and on their way into war. When we got to the airport, we weren’t allowed out of the bus until our tickets and extra information was handed out.
When the man handed me my information, I was eager to look at where I was going. I had no clue where Tay Ninh is at. All I know is that I’m near the Demilitarized Zone.

This is a lot of help… Not.

I hope to God that wherever I go is close to wherever Raymond is…

Maybe he’s already there at the hospital resting peacefully in a bed.

We depart from the bus and we head to our planes. It turns out that our transportation is a Lockheed C-130 Hercules cargo plane, and the medics are all going to be taken to the 45th surgical hospital and separated from there.

When we got on the cargo planes there were no seats. We had to sit on the floor. The flight was long, quiet, and tiring. I was so happy whenever we landed at the hospital. We were escorted from the planes into a big building where we were hand uniforms to change into immediately. Then we were handed our official information. My official placement is at the 88th field hospital. They then gave us directions to the vehicles we depart in.

And I guess I’m the only one going there…

When everybody else is loading onto buses, I’m loaded onto a utility Jeep, with no doors, and window. The driver gets out to get my stuff and puts it in the back. He gets into the driver’s seat and hands me a helmet similar to the one he’s wearing.

I stare at it, confused.

“Erm… what is this for?”

“It’s so you don’t get your brains blown out.”

I stare at him blankly.

I can’t believe he just said that to me.

His cheek pulls up the side of his lip into a smirk, and he raises a brow.
“Well are you going to take it or what?”

I nod, but I don’t move.

He huffs, and reluctantly sits it on my head.

“My names Smitty by the way.”

“Maureen.”

He nods.

When he turns to key to the Jeep it begins to grumble, and rattle as if it was wounded itself. We get onto a dirt road that leads into the jungle. In the background you can hear the faint sound of gunshots and people screaming, which startles me.

“Exactly how far away is this unit?”

He shrugs, and shakes his hand.

“Maybe about thirty minutes away. Why? You want to go home already?” He chuckles.

“No! I was just wondering.”

“I’m just messing with you. Jeez, take a joke.”

I sigh, “ I’m sorry, I’m just stressing a lot.”

“Oh? What’s there to be stressed out? The worst thing to happen is getting kill.”

“I’m not worried about that, I’m worried that I won’t find…”

I look down.

I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

“Find what?

“My–”

“Get down!”

He pushes me out of the seat onto the ground next to the glove box. Bullets whiz past us, and a choir of machine guns sing. I look up to see Smitty hunkered down low, and still steering the vehicle.

“You see? This is why I told you to take to helmet… Now stay low!”

I hunker down even lower whenever I see something land in the bed of the Jeep. I think Smitty saw it too, because his eyes widen. I scurry to grab it, even though I don’t know what it is. It’s sizzling, and the metal is cold.

“What shou–”

“Get it the f*** out of here!”

I grab ahold of his shoulder for support and chuck it to the left of him. It explodes in mid air, rattling the Jeep.

The shooting eventually slows down, and ends. In fear of it happening again, I stay low.

“Yah awright?”

I look up and Smitty’s looking down at me.

I nod as I look him over. His chest is rising, and falling rapidly. His mouth is hung open a bit, heaving in as much air as possible. He’s trying to hide something. I crawl up into the seat next to him, and I look him over.

I panic as I see blood oozing out underneath his name. He raises a hand to try and stop me, but I begin searching for cloth, anything. I reach over the seat, and I fling open my suitcase. I sadly grab my white dress and I rip a chunk of it off. I ball it up, and push it up against the wound.
Smitty winces.

“Don’t worry bout it. It appened before, thas why ima driven insteada fighten.”

“You need to keep pressure on it… How long till we get there?”

“Jess up de roa.”

He huffs.

Blood soaks my hand. I’m panicking in fear that it won’t stop.

As we pull into the unit, I startscreaming. People came running, confused.

“Get a spot open whatever! Just help him!”

Two men peel him out of the Jeep and head for the biggest makeshift building.

I follow.

Walking inside the building, there are sinks where people are preparing for surgery. I quickly wash up, grab gloves, a face mask, and a cap to hold my hair back. The two men struggled to lay him down on the only empty table.

“No… No, I’ll be fine. Someone else needs the help mo dan me.”

They force him down, and begin to put him under anesthesia. I look around to see if anybody was going to start operating, but nobody move from their places.

Being the impatient person I am, I begin operating.

“Hey you…”

I look up from my work, and there’s a male doctor watching me.

“You’re a nurse you’re not supposed to be doing that on your own.”

I shrug, and continue to work.

“Well no one was doing anything about him, so I started… I’m almost done anyways so I wouldn’t bother stopping me if I was you, and he didn’t die so that’s all that matters.”

The man nods his head and walks away.

The procedure took longer because it was a chest wound. It hurts to think that if he had to wait any longer, he could have very well died.

When I finish, I call for somebody to take him to a cot. When I walk into the resting room, I search for Raymond.
Excitement fills my chest, but not the good excitement. I couldn’t find him. The pain of him not being there is a killer. I want to scream, and start throwing things, and fall to the ground in a fit, like a child would.

Someone ruins my thoughts by grabbing me by my arm, and starts dragging me.

“You’re coming with me.”

I’m escorted from the building. We walk across the dirt road to a smaller building. We walk through a room with a lot of machines, and a microphone… It must be the communication room. We turn to the right, and go through a set of huge swing doors. The office is the size of a small living room. File cabinets lay along the wall to the left of me, and a desk scattered with paper, sits in the center of the room. There’s a man with messy, dirty blonde hair, behind the desk, skimming over some papers.

“Sir, here’s the nurse that arrived earlier today.”

The man behind the desk rises.

“Thank you. Please take a seat… Corporal, you’re dismissed.”

Confused, I sit down across from the man. Not looking at me he picks back up the papers he was currently reading.

“You’re Miss. Maureen Adelmo, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

He glances up from his papers.

“I am Colonel Chamberlain.”

I nod

Slowly he sets down the papers, and reclines back, propping his feet upon the desk.

“You could very well be Court Martialed… You know that?”

I raise a brow, “ For what?”

“For goin into surgery without permission. That is highly frowned upon here, and another thing… You’re a nurse, not a doctor.”

“Ah– I don’t see what the problem is. The surgery went perfectly fine, I know what I’m doing, and he’s alive… I think that’s all that matters.”

He grunts, “ You’ve just arrived today. Things are different here.”

“So.”

This is so ridiculous…

“The point is, you can’t just come in here, and start cutting people open. We don’t know your skills.”

“Well go take a look at the man. That should prove my skills.”

The silence was cumbersome. Seconds that felt like hours passed. Inattentively the Colonel stood up, and bail out of the room. I shake my head, and roll my eyes.

So damn thick headed. No wonder I don’t like people.

As I wait patiently, I glance around the room some more.

Cabinets. Footsteps walking this way. Glass. Raymond. Bottles. They’re getting closer. Is he close? Alcohol. What? Knives… Knives! Torture. Smitty. I hope he’s doing good. What if they’re torturing him? Why is the door opening? Are they coming to get me too? I need to save Raymond. He’s walking around the desk. Why?

Chamberlain sits down. He says nothing. I nod, not knowing what to do.

This is so awkward.

“The work you have done was extraordinary.”

I smirk.

“Your ass is lucky. The man you saved, saved your ass in return.”

“What do you mean?”

“He saved your ass. Just leave it at that. I don’t really feel like explaining… Ryker!”
In the next room over, its seems like an earthquake came to visit. The walls rattle, objects begin to crash to the ground, a body hits the floor with a thud. Chamberlain lowers his head, and sighs. The door swings open, and a blonde haired man stumbles in half naked.

“Yes sir?” He draws his hand to a salute.

He looks down at me, with his pants halfway up his legs, revealing his boxers.

“Jesus Christ!”

Startled, he scurries to pull up his pants.

I giggle at the sight.

“Uh… oh jeez, I’ma sorry.”

“Mehh! Quit hem hawing around, and get this girl outta here, to her cot to unload, and straight to work!” Chamberlain scoffed.

“Ye-ye-yes sir.”

He shoots a look at me, and motions with his hand to follow. He whips around and out the doors we went.

“But what about my stuff?”

With a calm and soothing voice he claims, “ Oh uh… well… when your Jeep pulled in, I took it to you assigned cot, so that would be one less thing you had to worry about… Boy things were hectic.” he gives me a toothy grin.

From outside the office I hear Chamberlain screaming at me to not do something “stupid” again. Though truly I didn’t do anything wrong. I mean I saved a man’s life, but I guess that’s bad.

This place was bigger than what I thought it was gonna be. There’s tents, upon tents, for living, the headquarters, rehabilitation center, and the operation room. All just lumps of cloth, held up by a couple rods. People left and right would look up at me smirk… or point… or wave. I hate all the attention. I didn’t come here for it. I came to do my job, and find Raymond. The land was dry, and hot even though there’s no sight of the sun.

“So whaddya think of this place?”

I stare at the shirtless man in front of me, “ I mean, I guess I can’t complain.”

We finally stop in front of the next to last tent.

“My name’s​ Ryker by the way… Corporal Ryker.”

He sticks a hand out and I take it.

“You have three other roommates.”

He walks into​ the tent, and I follow.

My stuff lays neatly in a pile on the empty cot in the right corner.

I look around the messy tent, “Where are they?”

“They’re in the OR, a batch of causalities just came in… pretty bad. You need to get going there as soon as possible, so let’s get going.”

We begin to run as we see more choppers fly in.

Oh maybe Raymond’s on his way.

Ryker is kind enough to help me put on my scrubs after I sterilized my arms and hands, and off to surgery I went.

Hours have passed, and the only thing I’ve been allowed to do was hand the doctor what he requested. These poor men out on the battlefield, with their only hopes being that they make it back to their families. Many were coming in with chest wounds or blown off limbs. It makes me fear as to what happened to Raymond. The causalities are coming in nonstop. It’s like it’s never gonna end.

About six hours into surgery, a man was rushed in screaming at the top of his lungs. The man has had both of his legs blown off, while in the process of saving his best friend. The man was loosing a lot of blood, and the doctor I was work beside didn’t think he was going to make it, but we operated on him anyways.

Ten hours. Blood everywhere. Thirteen hours. Scalpel. Seventeen hours. Nineteen hours. Clamp. Suction. Ew it’s so hot in here. Twenty-two hours. Why? Twenty- eight hours. These sights are hard to not stop stressing about. Thirty hours. Is he gonna live? Thirty- two hours. Stay awake Maureen! Thirty-four hours. Finally! Done!

I slump down to the floor in exhaustion.

Wow… I thought. I just saved about fifty people.

Eventually Ryker walks up to give me a hand.

“So how did it go?”

“Oh it went…”

“Come on let’s go get you cleaned up.”

I look at him and shake my head, “No, I want to go see how they’re doing, can you take me to see them?”

He looks down to the ground at a puddle of blood.

“Uh sure, walk this way.”

The room was large, and filled with rows, and rows of men. I gaze upon the men until I find Smitty, motioning for me.

I look him over, “ Hey how are you feeling?”

“I feel great. A bit dizzy, but great.”

“Yeah you lost a lot of blood.”

“I can’t thank you enough for saving me–”

Smitty continues to talk, but I over hear the man next to him.

“Yeah one of my buddies and I, his name was Raymond, poor soul I dunno what happened to him, but anyways, the damn gooks comin out a nowhere, and we–”

“What!”

The men around me stop and stared.

Smitty looks at me, “ Maureen, ya okay?”

I shuffle towards the man talking about Raymond.

“Wait wait wait. What was this Raymond’s last name?”

My God won’t you hurry up and tell me!

“What’s it matter to you cutie?”

“Just tell me!”

“Alright, alright, alright, take it easy now chicky, let me think.”

Hurry up already!

“Ah it was a simple name. Uh… Ronalds. No… Reynolds… no no no… ah jeez…. Rodgers? Yeah! Rodgers! Raymond Rodgers! Hey don’t I know you? You look quite familiar?”

I stare at him in excitement.

“THAT’S MY RAYMOND!!!”

“ Wha–?”

“I’m his girlfriend! Maureen! Has he ever said anything about me?”

“ Maureen! Yeah that’s your name! No wonder you were so familiar. He always talked abou ya. He carried a picture of you everywhere.”

“Do you know where he is?”

My nerves begin to shake. Fear fills my body. I watch this unknown man in front of me think. I lean over to take a look at his papers. Vincent Bradley is his name.

What an odd name.

I lean back up to see him shaking his head, and rubbing his chin. I sit down next to Smitty on his cot.

“I wish I knew exactly where his is hun… I have an idea, but it’s hard to navigate damn Gookville. The last time I saw him was about two weeks ago. Up north a bit in the DMZ… Not too far way, but them damn rats move fast whenever they’ve got a hold of one of us. Series of tunnel they crawl in, and they climb like monkeys… We are in the same Battalion. We were dropped in Operation Prairie, we were being over powered, so we were pulled back. Ray went to call in choppers, and by that time I was shot down…That’s the last time I saw him, but I know he was one of the few to have to go back in to get the wounded, after that he was missing… I wish I could be of more help, but that’s all I know. If it makes you feel any better knowing, he was the leader, succeeded in everything he didn’t. He saved my ass a couple of times.”

I smile a little bit, “ Yeah, that’s my Raymond…”

“Hey, he’s a smart man, he knows how to get out of situations like that.”

Ryker pats my hand lightly.

I want to go out there and search for him, but I don’t know how to tell them. I feel like such a clown. But I’m gonna do it anyways…

“I’m going to go out there, and search for him.”

Vince breaks out in laughter, and Smitty’s eyes widen, “You what?”

“I said I’m going to go out, and find him.”

“Uh no you’re not.” Smitty says in a smart alec remake.

I respond in the same tone, “ Uh yeah I am. I shall leave tonight.”

Smitty and Vince look at each other, and shake their heads. They think I’m nuts!

Vince takes a moment, “ Listen Chicky, you just can’t go out on a man hunt like that… it’s not allowed–”

“Yeah I know. But I need to find him… That’s why I came here.”

Why am I doing this?

Vince sighs, “ And I’m not letting you go out there alone either.”

“Yeah!” Smitty adds.

I want to have a fit because I’m not getting my way… But I don’t.

If I can’t go alone, then they should come with me!

I blurt out, “ Then you guys should come with me! Besides, you’ll be back out on the field here in the next week or so, correct?”

Smitty stutters, “ Ye-yeah, but Maureen, that’s not what we’re supposed to do–”

Vince buts in, “Besides, I can’t afford to get my ass killed, I almost died once, I don’t need to experience that again.”

Smitty adds, “ Yeah, and I don’t even know who this Raymond dude is… He could be dead for all–”

I pounce on top of him, grabbing him by the waist to dig my thumb into the freshly sewn wound.

He gasps, but I don’t loosen my grip.

I get up in his face, while tears are streaming down mine, “Listen, I didn’t come here to be told he is dead, I know he’s out there, and very well alive. And if you want to thank me, you’ll help me…”

I let go of Smitty, and I turn to Vince, “… And for you, Raymond has saved your butt so many times, you claim… Maybe it should be your turn to save his.”

Vince is crestfallen, “ You have a point… Oh what the hell, what do I have to lose? I’m in if you’re in.”

He points at Smitty.

“Yeah why not…”

Joy rushes like adrenaline inside me. I pounce back on Smitty to hug him, he flinches in fear, but I don’t intend to hurt him.

We agreed to start our journey the night Smitty gets released from the hospital, which is in about a week. The hardest thing about this plan is sneaking me out of the camp. Due to being a woman, I am not allowed anywhere near the battlefield. The idea of cutting my hair came up in our planning, but thankfully there is a thing called extra large helmets. Therefore, I can tuck my hair up underneath, along with getting my face dirty to hide my feminine features. Supposedly, according to Smitty, ammunition is easy to get to. Vince knows his way around Vietnam rather well so he’ll be able​ to navigate where we are going… Sorta. And gladly both boys are highly skilled in combat.

The whole week was a drag. Nothing but ripping men apart, pulling hunks of metal out of their bodies, and sewing them back together. It was much like a wash, rinse, repeat cycle. Though we did get some entertainment, whenever Ryker came around. The poor thing, constantly tripping and falling, and most of the time he was tripping over his own two feet. Whenever you heard something crash to the ground, you knew Ryker was around! The food in the mess tent, tasted like crap. It was worse than school food… I never thought that was possible. Another thing that may be a road block for our plan is that, Colonel Chamberlain is constantly watch me. Everybody tells me not to take it to heart. They claim he’s just pissed off that I proved him wrong. I got along rather well with the other nurses, but I didn’t spend much time with them back in the tent, where they gossip about others, and fight over which doctor is better looking. What would happen often, is one girl would come in, and talk about what’s planned for the night ahead while on their date with a doctor. Mainly they would do this, just to make each other jealous… And these are married or engaged men, and women! Whenever I wasn’t on duty or sleeping, I was visiting Smitty and Vince. Though our biggest concern was to save Raymond, we would talk about a lot of other things. In that week I got to know the boys well. Both are farm boys, Smitty’s from a small town in Ohio, about two hours north of Cincinnati. The funny thing is though, is that Vince lives about thirty minutes away from me.

It funny how you travel thousands of miles, and you meet somebody that lives that close to you.

The day finally comes where Smitty is release from the hospital, and we begin to put the plan into play. We stick close together throughout the day. The only time we were apart was to go to the bathroom, and for Smitty to gather the equipment needed.

Eleven o’clock rolls around, and everybody is in their tents, put in a spell under a dead sleep… except for me, Vince, and Smitty. I lay awake in my cot waiting for the boys.

Eventually I hear muttering.

“Why did I decide to do this?”

“Shh she might hear you stupid.”

“Grr… Why?”

“Well why did you huh?”

“I don’t know…”

“Yes you do.”

“Because she saved my ass.”

“I think we know it’s more than just that.”

“Nuh ah.”

What? Is that Smitty and Vince?

“Fine.” The same voice says, “My God she’s drop dead gorgeous, and she’s feisty too…”

“Haha you got that right!”

“I’ve never seen someone as beautiful as her, no wonder Raymond always talked about her. Everything about her is perfect.”

“Yeah, yeah, now let’s get moving lover boy, we need to save her boyfriend”

“Yeah…”

A couple minutes pass.

“Hey… Maureen? Are you in there?” the voice was slow and quite.

I slowly crawl out of my cot, and out the tent I went, leaving everything behind. I run around the tent, to find Smitty, and Vince.

Smitty’s face is red from embarrassment, but I don’t say anything about it. I just push the thought into the back of my head, hoping to forget about it.

“You two ready?”

“Yep.” The boy say simultaneously.

“Let’s start heading north.”

Smitty throws the helmet on my head, and hands me a foreign weapon, that I’ve never seen before. We run low behind the tents to get to the other end of camp.
The sound of a gun being cocked breaks the silence. We stop dead in our tracks, and turn. My heart stops. I can’t make out who it is.

“Maureen?” The shadow calls out. “Now don’t play stupid, I know what’s going on. I heard the whole plan. Now just be glad that I’m the only one that knows.

I walk closer to the gunman, “Well who are you then?”

Nothing is said.

The figure walks closer to me, but it’s hard to see. The figure’s face is only inches from mine. Smitty grabs me by the collar, and tightens his grip, to make a quick escape.

Smitty must know who it is because he lets go of me.

It’s Ryker.

“If you would have came to me, I would of help you.” he says.

I sigh in relief.

“It’s not safe out there.”

“No shit.” Vince mumbled.

“You guys won’t have any access to find out if there’s something going on around you.”

“Yeah I didn’t think of that.” I add.

Ryker cackles a bit, “It’s a good thing I’m in control of getting and sending reports.”

“Oh?”

“Here I have something that might help you guys a bit.”

He hands a leather bag to Smitty… It’s a phone.

“There now if something’s going on I’ll let you know. Now get going… Go!”

We have no time to say anything so we start running into the jungle.I have no clue where to go, so I say nothing, and I follow Vince.

We keep our eyes peeled at all times. But there there’s no sign of life thank God. Sounds fill the night air, from the animals that roam this place. I peek behind me to check on Smitty, who is constantly looking left and right. I smile, and I continue forward.

I can’t believe that we are actually on our way to find Raymond!

The morning sun sheds its light through the thick trees, and we continue to travel, though we are more noticeable. For all we know we could be passing Vietnamese soldiers, and we don’t even see them.

We stop for a small break, and we make an agreement that we should find a good place to stop.We were all impressed on how far we made it in such short time. Vince claims that it should only take one more night of walking until we make it to the Demilitarized Zone, and from there on out, we just search until we find Raymond.

To stay hidden we climb up a thick tree, and we secure ourselves in the branches. Vince and Smitty planned on taking shifts, while one was down on the lower branches watching out for anything strange, the other was up with me sleeping. Vince took the first shift.

The heat was dreadful, depriving me of sleep, along with falling out of the tree. I barely moved. I stuck close to the trunk, most of the time, I was bear hugging it to hold on to it. I would often look over to find one of the guys sleeping peacefully. Sometimes, there would be some small talk, but that rarely happened, because we didn’t want to blow our cover. Forgot food, we had some rations, but I was nowhere near hungry.

We could die at any minute… What if they catch us too?

As the sun sets, Smitty leans over to me, “ Hey get ready… It’s about time to get moving. “

I nod.

“Make sure your gun is locked and loaded. Anythings possible at this point.”

“Erm… I don’t have a problem with that, but the only problem is that I can’t climb out of this tree… I can crawl up, but I can’t get back down…”

He chuckles a little bit, “If that’s the only problem you have, we’ll be golden. You know how to shoot a gun correct?”

Should I tell him? Nahh… Welp I’m going to do it anyways.

“Yes, I do in a matter of fact. My father taught me when I was five. Every season he would take me hunting.”

He smirks, “ Oh yeah? So your father was alright with you heading off to war then, huh?”

I wish he was there to help me make that decision.

“He didn’t know.”

“What do you mean he didn’t know? Did you just leave without saying anything?”

I sigh, “ My father died two years ago from a heart attack.”

His eyes widen, “ Oh jeez… I’m sorry to hear. Was it just you and your mother then?”

I shake my head no, “ My mother left us not too long after I was born.”

He looks way, “I’m sorry for asking…”

“No, no it’s perfectly fine.” I smile slightly, to reassure him it was okay.

He gives me a smirk in return.

I look up into the sky, “ Hey we better get going.”

“Right. I’ll head down first, then I’ll give you the qew to start coming down.”

Smitty heads for the bottom, and grabs Vince on the way down. They stood at the bottom, conversing while pointing in different directions.

Finally they motioned for me to come down. I slowly slide down the tree until I feel hands grab a hold of me. The hands help me until I settle on the ground. I turn around and hugged Smitty.

I whisper in his ear, “Thank you.”

He pats me on the back, and releases from the hug after I do. I grab Vince lightly by the forearm, and he grins, then starts walking away.

Smitty stops us, “Alright, we thought last night was bad, tonight is going to be even worse, we have a higher chance of running into the enemy. Keep on guard at all times, constantly keep watch.”

“We can easily make it another twenty miles if we keep a good pace. Eight miles from the demilitarized zone, will be when we really start running into Charlie, and that’s where we’ll more than likely find Raymond. There might be other prisoners too.”

“Well we should get them too. Ray wouldn’t want to leave anybody behind.”

“Alright. Let’s get moving.”

The night feels so sinister, but so safe. Like we’re the only ones around, but there are many others near.

Hours pass, and everything is going great until I trip and fall over a tree root. My hand falls into something wet and slimey, and I bring my hands up to my face,it’s covered in red. I turn my head to the right, and my cheek skims across cloth.

But what lays before my eyes, is a horrendous sight. What I thought was a tree root, was actually an arm. Where there was supposed to be a stomach, was actually a cut starting from the base of the throat and went down to the hips. Two flaps of skin stretch outwards revealing bones, but no organs. I look to the ground below me to find them. I begin to panic, pushing myself backwards, getting ready to scream. A hand reaches from behind, and covers my mouth. I begin to sob.

“Shh… Everything’s okay. Relax… Shh…” Smitty claims.

I bury my head into Smitty’s body.

“Uh… Hey guys.”

I freeze, and tilt my head up, “ What Vince?”

He points forward, and about eighty yards ahead sits a small concrete building, revealing vacant with dim lights inside.

“Let’s go take a look. It’s worth a shot.”

Smitty crouches down next to me, “Now Maureen, we don’t know what’s around or inside that building, so stick close to me. Don’t let these sights bother you, if you do, it will only make it worse.

You’re a nurse you know how to put up with gruesome things.”

I get up, and head for the building. Left and right bodies lay ripped apart, positioned in the worst ways. Some impaled again trees. I look straight ahead so that the only thing I see is the building.

As we approach it, Vince moves ahead to investigate.

“It seems clear. Let’s go inside.”

We slowly open the door trying to not make a sound. It’s just one giant room with chairs in the center. There is a stairwell along the right wall, leading up to a second floor. As we go up the steps begin to moan. I look at to window sill, where a candle sits. It was freshly lit., Which means somebody is here.

“No… please. No more.” Cries a motionless figure in the corner.

I begin to move forward past Vince, and Smitty.

“Maureen, don’t go any further.”

“Maureen?”

The figure shuffles around a bit. I start towards it.

Turns out there is two bodies

I kneel down next to the first one, looking the body over. Their arms are both tied back. Bloody slashes cover every inch of the first one’s body. I roll the man over to get a good look at his face.

His face is nearly black because of how dirty it is. His eyes open the slightest bit, and slowly begin to widen. He reaches up and knocks off my helmet, and my hair falls loosely.

“Mo? Is that you?”

“Ye–”

And like a flash of lightning,he reaches up and wraps his arms around me. I brush my hand through his greasy, brown hair.

Through the tears he cries, “My God I thought I’d never see you again…”

He pauses, and pulls back to look at me, “Wait how did you get here? You need to get out of here. Fast! They’ll be back any minute! They’re down in the basement. You need to go!”

“We’re not leaving you behind. Come on get up!”

“But we can’t leave him behind.” He motions towards the body next to him.

Vince runs over to the body and hoisted it onto his shoulder, “ Come on Ray get up and get moving.”

As I cut him loose I turn to Smitty, “ Hey get the other gun ready.”

Smitty nods, “Already on that.” And he chuck the weapon at Raymond.

We head to the stairs. Smitty first, then me and Raymond, and in the back, Vince with the body.

As we head down, black shadows come up,Mumbling in a language I can’t understand. Smitty, and Raymond waste no time, and they begin shooting. The bodies instantly drop.

“Come on let’s pick up the pace! They already know we’re here!”

We get to the first floor, and by that time, they are streaming out of behind the staircase, with weapons. But thankfully we fight back.

We cram out the door, and bullets fly towards us, from the darkness.

I follow the guys and I begin to shoot up into the trees. Bodies begin fall from about.

“Maureen! Get around us!” screams Raymond.

We form into a circle around the man who was found with Raymond. We each have a different direction to look out at, while watching out for each other.

And then everything was silent.

We stand frozen for a few to make sure it doesn’t start again.

“Come on, let’s get movin…” Vince whispers as he throws the man up over his shoulder.

I turn, to find Smitty and Raymond, facing me.

“ You alr– Maureen!”

It happened so suddenly.

Smitty whips around drawing his weapon up, and a second later something falls out of a tree directly in front of me.

Raymond’s running after me.

What just happened? Why am I bleeding? How did I get on the ground?

I can’t feel my chest, and I taste metal. Fluid begins to spill from my mouth uncontrollably, and I can’t stop twitching.

What is going on? I can’t see a damn thing.

“Vince! Get the phone out! Call for help now!”

“Come on Maureen stay with us”

Raymond has hold of my face.

I think?

“Come on I just go you back don’t leave me!”

“Yes! Operator…”

“Come on!”

“Ryker! Come on!”

“Jesus Christ!”

“Get a chopper in fast!”

“Get the first aid kit”

“– about nine miles south of the zone…”

“Over there–”

Tell me what’s going on…

“Maureen–”

“Get here now!”

“Come on stay with me–”

The last thing is see is a blurry outline of Raymond.

“Come on, come on, come on…”

Everything went white, as if someone was shining a light in my eyes. It just keeps getting brighter, and brighter

And then everything went silent.