Cold Hatred (Book 2 & 3 of the Damned of the 2/19th) -Updated and Rewritten

Cold Hatred - Epilogue

2/19th Special Weapons Group

Restricted Area, Alfenwehr West Germany

Late Winter- January, 1986

Day 15 of Repairs

Day 7 of the Second Incident

Afternoon, 1400 Zulu

Bomber was standing next to me, both of us carrying M-16's we'd pulled out of the armory of the War Fighter Tunnels, dressed in uniforms pulled from stocks. We looked good, but we were both exhausted, chewing on Vicoden like candy, and still in pain. My pinky was taped to my ring finger, Nancy was pretty sure they were going to have to pin the bone, making it so both palms had metal in them.

Melkin and Lancer were opening the door. Lancer had insisted on being part of the door team, quoting the "most expendable" rule that guided our lives. He made constant jokes about being blind, but twice I'd walked into the bathroom and found him sitting in a stall crying softly.

One of the times Dobbs had been sitting with him, holding his hand.

I'd kept silent about that.

Dobbs was behind us, an eyepatch from the medical clinic over the empty socket, her face speckled with scabs. I'd seen her chest too, it was the same way, along with her left shoulder. Nancy had put in a lot of stitches, and told me privately that Dobbs had won the shrapnel game, with 128 separate holes. Bomber had come in second, his legs torn up with 78 little holes in them. Stokes was third, most of it in that big ass of hers. Sherry had beaten everyone at stitches or staples, clocking in at almost 200 of them. Dobbs had come in a close second with 145. None of the rest of us were even close.

Sherry had taken what he called "the most painful shit of his life" yesterday, and I'd stood over Nagle while she'd used a metal rod to stir through it, looking at. I have no clear what she was looking for, since it was shit, but hey, she knew shit I didn't. His color was good, he could wiggle his fingers and toes, his drainage tubes were clear of infection, his breathing was good, hit heartrate and pulse strong. He was doped up on morphine all the time, but he was in good spirits.

I still had a chest tube in, the LT still had a drainage tube in his skull and was often light sensitive or suffered from migraines. But he refused to rest during them, working even while his hands shook.

Twice Nagle sedated him, four times he'd suffered seizures, and when he slept he often mumbled about Vietnam, and often became dazed and returned to Vietnam, mumbling to himself or outright talking to people who weren't there or that he was mistaking us for.

He was dying in front of us.

And there wasn't a goddamn thing we could do about it.

Nagle had spent all her time sleeping, reading a manual, or following the manuals instructions working on us. Lanks and Stokes had gotten a lot of practice too, mainly working on Nagle. They'd had to put a chest tube in her at one point, which apparently went in differently on a woman. She had to sleep sitting up, pneumonia having set in. She told me that if a female had large breasts, and injured her ribs, it put her at risk of pneumonia and bronchitis. The other females bitched, but she pretty laid it down that they had sleep sitting up, the LT backed her up, and they got used to it.

Aine had been her annoying self. Exploring the complex, shadowing me, following Stokes or Nagle around like a puppy, and in general, being a weirdo. We knew she slept, but never actually caught her doing it.

We'd marched the Major to the barracks entrance, cracked open the vault door, and marched him outside at gunpoint. He had been only in BDU's, no cold weather gear, and he had stood there, in the dark and cold, and pleaded with us not to leave him out there to freeze to death.