Casualty Letter

An open ended, mysterious account of the Vietnam war.

 

It's the kind of day where the sun beats down on your heavy helmet. The kind of muggy that grips your throat and suffocates you slowly. The kind of Vietnam afternoon when you're tempted to strip yourself of all your gear, abandon your post, and risk your life for just five minutes in the cool, calming river. It was the kind of day when looking over your shoulder was too tiring, you'd rather die.

 

We had been traveling for only a few days but it seemed like centuries. Five of us soldiers were crammed in a Jeep fit for only four. We all breathed each others second-hand air, living off of river water and spam. Our filthy clothes stuck to the layer of grime that was collecting on our skin. We smelled like sweaty a*s and dog s**t, product of neglected personal hygiene. None of us would speak, we were too exhausted. When we weren't sleeping we were thinking. When we weren't thinking we were preparing for survival. Vietnam was hell on Earth and if we were attacked we feared we'd live. We were cowards.

 

Night was falling and Private Collins was already sleep-talking. Tonight he carried on a delirious conversation with Private McCoy. McCoy died three days ago when a band of guerrillas attacked our camp.

 

I let my boot smack against his arm, "Shut up," I said.

 

"Oh come on, Cap- let him be," Private Hum whispered.

 

I grunted and rested my head against the door. I drifted off into the nostalgic sunset with Margie. Oh God how I missed her. I caught a whiff of her hair ever so often when I was half asleep at my post. The ocean, where we first met. It was then that I could almost lean over and kiss her. Almost. There was a special letter for her in my breast pocket. Right over my heart, right below my dog tags.

 

The Jeep halted; all of us were jerked awake.

 

"Enemy lines," Hum said.

 

I cleared my thoughts and cautiously climbed out of the Jeep. I had to keep my men safe. They were counting on me to make sure the road was clear. I didn't think of it as putting my life on the line, I thought of it as protecting theirs.

 

Margie's scent was with me again. I trudged down the gravel road; I could almost feel her hand in mine. We trotted five-hundred yards together.

 

I turned back towards the Jeep and whistled. The men rolled slowly towards me, trusting my judgment.

 

Click, click, click...

 

No time to think. No time to run.
Margie would never receive her letter.

 

Author's Note

Edited: 5/4/08.
I fixed the few spelling mistakes. I decided to leave it very open ended in case I decided to write a follow up, which will answer many questions like, where's the rest of the platoon, why is there no backup, ect.

Reviews

[M@]

I'd have to agree with No one when he states, "I like what you tried to do here," the focus here being try. This short piece sounds like an introduction to a much larger story, be it a short story or a novel, and it left me wanting more.

Having said that, this piece left me wanting more in a lot of different respects. Who are these characters? Why is Collins crazy? Why are only 5 soldiers going behind enemy lines? What's their objective? How long have they been fighting for, and how torn by the war have they become? Leaving a few gaps open for the reader to fill in for themselves is never a bad thing (Hemmingway endorsed it), but leaving it this open gives me the feeling that this could be used for other writers to practice their character development techniques.

Sadly, this lacks everything a good story needs to survive. There doesn't seem to be any plot whatsoever, save for the fact that there's a war that needs to be fought. The only setting is Vietnam, which is only whispered a few times in text, so I'm unsure where these soldiers are exactly. There is no character development at all, to the point where, as No one said, the readers are left to fend for themselves and create characters that may not fit well at all with the context of the story. There is also no conflict; granted, yes, a war is being fought, which may appear to suffice, but these soldiers have yet to fight anything.

Your first two paragraphs are the best of the whole piece. You have a talent of description, which can give the reader a feeling of embodiment within the story. I can feel the harsh times these soldiers go through, and I can imagine the nightmares they must have whenever they should be unlucky enough to slip away into unconsciousness. You do a terrific job at this; focus on this point and see where it takes you in your next short story.

I don't know too much about the military or how it operates to agree or disagree with No one's observations (though I don't doubt for a second that he knows what he's talking about). Be that as it may, remember that if you don't know what you're talking about, then your readers will be able to tell easily, much as No one was able to.

As I said, this piece lacks everything that a story needs to survive. My humble suggestion would be to take apart your story or your idea for a story and see if you can pinpoint all the different elements of fiction within it; I too have been victim of writing something only to find that it lacks any sort of meaning whatsoever.

[No one]

I like what you tried to do here. For a short story, you introduced the characters well without too much description, letting the readers envision the characters for themselves.
I thought the first paragraph could be deleted altogether and the story would read more smoothly. It doesn't quite fit with the rest.
There are a few missing words, misspelled words, which show you didn't really edit as you should. I suggest you go back and read it slowly and edit. There's a missing word in the second sentence. I almost stopped reading when I saw that because I don't like reading unedited work.
I cleared my through and

[No one]

I still think you need to address the basic construction of this story. You really didn't address the points I raised in my first review. This fundamentals of this story do not work and need to be addressed.

I am not a scholar and haven't studied the Second Indochina War, but I know a few things about it. Vietnam is not a very large country. And the battles were taking place, I believe, in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (aka North Vietnam) and in South Vietnam. With that said, is it believable that soldiers could be traveling 3 days in a jeep to get to enemy lines? No. In Vietnam, enemy lines were everywhere. Maybe in a country as big as India or America the jeep could travel nonstop for three days. I know I drove once from Florida to Canada and it only took 24 hours. Think about that.
Maybe they weren't traveling for three days. You said a few. 3? 2? Even so, you don't mention that they stopped to camp or anything. It seems they just drove straight through. Once again, that's impossible in a small country like Vietnam.
They never met enemy troops in those three days? They never met allies?
Just to give you an idea of how tiny North Vietnam was---> Vietnam has an area of 129,000 square miles. America has an area of 3,795,000 square miles. Think about that.
This is a war that lasted from 1959-1975. In cities, ambushes, countryside, jungle... Finally it ended in the capital of the South, Saigon.

And, one more question before I go, why would the soldiers drive to enemy lines with their dead comrade in the jeep? Wouldn't they leave him and radio a pickup? I mean, do they expect HIM to fight the Viet Cong?