12/24/1963

Fictional Journal Entry

I can smell gunpowder in the air as if it were a thick perfume. People are dieing all around me. The sound of guns, bombs, and screams make it hard to sleep at night, so I know this isn’t just a dream. No, this is Vietnam.
I may never see my family again, not unless you count the guys that are stationed with me family. I don’t even know if I will se them again either. Everyday could be my last. Private Jim smith, a roommate I had in the last camp just got shot by one of out own men, our own men. They say it was an accident but I think that once you become numb to murder, it doesn’t even matter anymore. I can still see his face from when he first saw his daughter, a picture had come in the mail a week after she was born they named her Reagan, after the governor of the state they live in.  It’s horrible to think that she will never meet her father, and he will never meet his daughter.
The other night I had a dream that I was back in America. Everything was so much nicer than before I left. My house seemed so much larger, cleaner. My children were so well behaved it was all so real. I guess you take things for granted. When I woke up I was hoping I was just having a nightmare. I wanted to wake up, I just knew it couldn’t be true. But it was. I was back in Nam, with the blood, guts and tears that is making this bloodbath famous.
Everyday has the chance to be my last. I don’t like those chances. I can feel the ground quake under my feet every time a bomb is dropped and yes, you do get used to it, but is that something you really want to be used to, death, murder?