Band of Brothers- 1968

Not a stir of air, not a movement of grass or bush, This night is as still as the death that stalks the unsuspecting. That creeper of the shadows, the face that only takes on features after the delicate squeeze of a trigger splits the quiet of night. My eyes pick up momentary flashes of night-birds that make me Jump to alertness, out of my thoughts of long lost girl-friends and singing songs in silence that I alone can hear. It’s nothing, I go back to my songs and an array of my useless opinions of life. We are motionless; movement is death in this business for it draws the eye of Sappers and their fast trigger- fingers. We lay in the middle of a movie being played out among the V C and their sneaking around and the ambush teams stacking the deck against them, a night of occasional flares lighting up the darkness and small fire- fights, giving us a peep show of the real war. Our war is a shell game most of the time with orders to “Stand Down. Sometimes free-fire zones are overridden by details while gunships are shooting at our targets, cutting us out of our war. We were jealous in our war. I look over at my team-mate and he lies there in his own thoughts of whatever It is to wart off the boredom of the long, lonely hours on a sniper post. He is black and I am white and we are members of the Band of Brothers. He is from Jersey City, New Jersey, and I am from the deep Delta of Mississippi. We are brothers in respect and survival and we would die for each other. No racist out here, either way. We endured the riggers and stress of sniper school and now the chickens have come home to roost. I feel grown up out here, more in touch with myself, more intellectual, the moment I get back on the base,I become an idiot. The morning hours are still young when the rocket hits the base, we hear the report and see the far away flash, then silence. Turner hands me the ear-phone and there is talk of a jeep blown over by the rocket. Just a case of wrong timing and the wrong place. The jeep has our name on it and I know who it is. Death has laid its cold hands on my friend. We are now, in our thoughts again, no mention of our loss to each other, just acceptance. As for me, I see my friend’s face again and again like movies playing in rewind, play and pause. He was my friend, now he is gone. I gaze over to Turner and there is that stare again. I lie there in my thoughts for they are pure; all fantasies gone, the war is real and it impales my spirit.