There are things I ain’t told you before, Loogs, because they’re too horrible but I want you to know because someone back home needs to. It’s the odors, man. Even the TV and newspaper reporters don’t write about it. They know about it because sometimes they’re with us in the middle of the action. Maybe their bosses take it out.

When you get to a village that’s been bombed or burned, you smell it. When you get to the scene of a firefight that happened three days ago, you smell it. It’s the odor of burned human flesh and the odor of rotten flesh, Loogs. Once you’ve smelled it, you never forget.

You see corpses torn to pieces. You find pieces of bodies. Burned bodies. Half eaten bodies. It’s hot and wet and us and the VC can’t always get to the bodies before the bugs and animals do. If a body’s left in the sun, by the second day it stinks horrible. Guys puke left and right.

All the time now I feel like I’m cracking up. Minute by minute torture, waiting to die. When you’re awake it’s terror and when you sleep it’s nightmares. I wake up every morning in a pool of sweat. I’m always shaking. Five more months of this? I can’t take five more days.

Promise you won’t say nothing to my parents. Swear it, Loogs. Think of this as my dying wish. It won’t make no difference. We are in the A Shau Valley now. Know that Doors song where he says no one gets out of here alive? This is the place. We are so deep in the jungle and away from the supply chain that I wonder if you will ever get this letter.

I am waiting for the right time. Maybe the next firefight. There are ways to do it in battle so you look like a hero. I want my family to be proud of me. So I’ll get some kind of posthumous medal they can hang on the wall.

I wish I’d listened to you, man. Now it’s too late. I can’t take this no more.

Your friend,

Chris

Jesus. Jesus.JESUS!

My hands tremble as I set the letter down. What should I do? What the fuck should I do? Tell his parents? What would they be able to do? And based on what he said about his family and their attitude toward war, wouldn’t I be betraying him? He mailed this letter almost three weeks ago. What if — aw, Christ, my stomach wants to heave. What if he’s already done it? If I tell his parents about the letter, they’ll know he didn’t die a hero.

Okay, okay, wait. Can I call the army directly?

And say what?