｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ ( 𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐚 ) prologue — PRINCESS OF THE PLATOON
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
─ 🧳🕸📺📀🦟🌪🎞⌛️ PLATOON. 1967 ｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆
CHRIS ALREADY FEELS LIKE HE HAS A LOT ON HIS PLATE, and it's only been a week thus far. Juggling frequent letters back home, an inflatable mattress (and about sixteen other things he was sure he didn't even need in his pack), an M–16, a constant crushing feeling of dread, and now, a flesh wound on the southwest edge of his neck, where the skin is ragged and raw from a narrowly-missed bullet. The wound still feels hot, but maybe that's just South Vietnam's lollipop sun as it burns a hole through the sky. Welcome to the hottest year of your life, they said.
His comrades are behind, the column snaking back deep into the brush. Young faces, hard and dirty after weeks in the field, exhausted yet alert, fatigues filthy, slept-in, torn, personalized, hair way past regulation length, medals, bandannas. A jungle army. Boys. It's 1967, and people back home are all about peace badges and campaigning for the sought-after liberty of youth. Chris hasn't had time to think about such luxuries for days.
He's just thankful to be out of the jungle. It's like he can finally let seven days of bated breath go. He hates it already and it's only been a week — six days of machete swinging and blisters and boredom, and on the seventh day, he's shot. 5 AM start, foxhole digging, all-night ambushes, jungle listening posts. All the while, he's scared out of his mind. He's so scared he can hardly breathe, and the man to his left — who his grandpa told him he'd form such a strong bond of camaraderie with — doesn't even want to know his name.
The unwritten rule is a green recruit's life isn't worth as much because he hasn't put his time in yet — and they say if you're gonna get killed in the Nam it's better to get it in the first few weeks, the logic being: you don't suffer that much. Chris assumes his fair share of suffering is waiting for him back in that jungle. For now, he can take a break. A man in a jeep takes him to the med tent, and he's there for a couple of days for a recovery period that he claims he doesn't even need.
Rule one of the 'Nam: always take care of your feet. Jungle rot is a killer and so many troops come down with it that when Chris hears Tex — an aptly named Texan — has come down with it, it's almost like hearing the name of an old friend. Too bad that's the only rule Chris is given and anything else you have to pick up from old-timers along the way.
Days later, Chris is driven up in a jeep to his Company PC — marked Bravo PC on a C-ration box — it's midday on a hot lazy afternoon in camp, few people out in the 102 degree sun. His company is on the outskirts of the base camp, their barracks regulation wood, canvas, and fine mesh screening, red dust everywhere, bunkers down on the perimeter, reams of barbed wire and concertina, a sand-bagged MESS HALL and CHAPEL, 81 mm mortar pits, observation towers, recoiless rifles, 50-caliber machine guns. He gets out of the jeep, stiff-necked, a bandage around it, still in some pain. A hot midday emptiness, nobody around except the flies.
