NVA Archives - Page 17 of 20

THE ELEVENTH NIGHT THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September

I crawled toward where I thought the cliff wall was in the darkness. The rain was unpitying and the drums were driving me insane, as the sound was magnified, bouncing back off of the cliff face. All of a sudden, I was out of the rain and the jungle floor turned into a...

THE ELEVENTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September

by James Strauss | 86 comments

I finished the letter home. It wasn’t my best work because I kept nodding off. Nodding off but not sleeping. I nodded through the letter, forgetting about what I was going to tell my wife, instead going into detail about how much Casey reminded me of Kramer, the major at the Basic School who’d hated me.

THE ELEVENTH DAY SECOND PART, 30 Days has September

by James Strauss | 135 comments

I took my binoculars and played with the focusing knobs to bring in the landing zone far below. I was trying to get a clearer view of why there was stuff piled up around the edges of the zone, but I couldn’t make out what they were. The Gunny walked over and took out...

THE TENTH NIGHT THIRD PART, 30 Days Has September

by James Strauss | 133 comments

There was nothing to be done but to sit with Keating’s body. I’d wanted to carry it myself but the guys would have none of it. Surprising me, Stevens said it all with a strange statement, coming from a noncom in a unit that hadn’t tolerated officers well, to say the...

THE TENTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September

by James Strauss | 204 comments

I wasn’t quite right and I knew it. Even with the rags pulled from my ears I could not hear much of anything. The noise had been too great. Counting wasn’t working either because this night was not about getting through, it was about living through. Living through, I...