The Death Of A Soldier

It's all my fault.  I just can't get it off my mind, it's always there circling, always being brought up for certain reasons.  I am the one that killed Kiowa.  I'm the one who set up camp here, and with all the rain the river flooded, and Kiowa drowned.  We finally found Kiowa's body, but it took us all day.  We all searched and finally Norman Bowker found him.  It took three of our men to pull him free from the muck, Azar, Norman Bowker, and Mitchell Sanders.  I hate having the responsibility on my shoulders that I killed him.  Every man in my platoon blames me.  Saying, "Why did we set up camp in a shit hole?" They don't like me, or trust me anymore, because I killed Kiowa.    Even a young soldier, who I can't remember his name, is messed up because of this.  He had a picture of his girlfriend in a plastic bag, and he lost it.  While the rest of the men were searching for Kiowa, he was looking for the picture.  He blames himself for the death of Kiowa, but I know that it is really, all my fault. 

Stationed for now

The Platoon and I have been moving around a lot lately.  The other day, we came across an old abandoned church, well I guess almost abandoned, for we found that two monks lived there.  We are west of the Batangan Peninsula.  We decided that it looked like a safe place to stay for a while.  We dug our foxholes in the front yard, the monks didn't seem to mind.  The oldest monk brought me into the church, and brought me a cane chair.  He gestured for me to sit down on it.  He seemed to be proud of it, and proud to have me, a Lieutenant, someone of high importance, sitting in it. The monks seemed to like us, especially Henry Dobbins, they called him, "Soldier Jesus".  They help us by bringing us water.  This way we could bathe for we don't get to do it very often.  they help us clean our guns and oil them, we show them what to do and they willingly do it and are happy. What nice help, from people who can't even speak our language.  I am greatful to them for the help that they have contributed.

A Great Fight

Today, a couple of the guys got into a fight over a stolen jackknife.  It was Lee Strunk and Dave Jensen, it broke out into a fist fight between the two.  Dave was much stronger,bigger and faster.  He eventually pinned Lee to the ground, held his arms around his neck, and repeatedly hit him in the nose.  There was a snapping noise that came, just the sound of it was painful for me to hear. And even then Dave didn't stop hitting him.  It took me and two other guys before we had enough strength to pull him off of Lee.  It was hard to see our own men fight against each other.  Stuff like this shouldn't have to happen, especially when we are in an area where we don't know and fighting against other enemies.  But when the fight was all over and we had Dave restrained, so he couldn't hurt Lee anymore.   Lee had to be choppered back to the medics, to be looked after, for we believed that he had a broken nose. 

My Love

I keep getting letters from the love of my life, she's just wonderful.  I wanted her to love me the way that I loved her, but he letters contain nothing about the matter of love.  She just keeps them short and telling me about her life.  She tried to stay away from the war topic, except for the line in each of the letters, that says, "Jimmy, take care of yourself."  They were signed "Love Martha" but I don't think that is how she felt.  Almost everyone here humps photographs, in my wallet, I keep 2 pictures of Martha, just so I wouldn't forget what she looked like.  One letter she sent me came with a good luck charm.  It is a pebble, she said that she had found it on the Jersey Shoreline.  To me it is a token of her truest feeling toward me.  But the day after Ted Lavender died, I went into my foxhole, and I started a fire.  I burned every letter and the pictures of Martha I had.  I just couldn't stand to be with her, if she didn't really love me.  I hated her and loved her all at the same time.  It was just so hard.

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