ants. i got ants on my neck .
i'm okay .  i'm okay.
somebody once wrote hell is the impossibility of reason. that's what this place feels like. i hate it already and it's only been a week. some goddamn week, grandma .  .  the hardest thing i think i've ever done is to go on point, 3 times this week - i don't even know what i'm doing. a gook could be standing 3 feet in front of me and i wouldn't know it, i'm so tired. we get up at 5 a.m., hump all day, camp around 4 or 5 p.m., dig foxhole, eat, then put out an all-night ambush or a 3-man listening post in the jungle. it's scary cause nobody tells me how to do anything cause i'm new and nobody cares about the new guys, they don't even want to know your name. the unwritten rule is a new guy's life isn't worth as much cause 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. i can believe that .  if you're lucky you get to stay in the perimeter at night and then you pull a 3-hour guard shift, so maybe you sleep 3-4 hours a night, but you don't really sleep .  i don't think i can keep this up for a year, grandma - i think i've made a big mistake coming here .
no .
yeah she's real pretty, you're lucky .
uh hunh.
sure.
yeah. hey tex - you're ten minutes fast.
junior!
shaddup! you're snoring .  shhh.
 'course mom and dad didn't want me to come, they wanted me to be just like them - respectable, hard- working, making $200 a week, a little house, a family. they drove me crazy with their goddamn world, grandma, you know mom, i don't want to be a white boy on wall street, i don't want my whole life to be predetermined by them.
 i guess i have always been sheltered and special, i just want to be anonymous. like everybody else. do my share for my country. live up to what grandpa did in the first war and dad the second. i know this is going to be the war of my generation. well here i am - anonymous all right, with guys nobody really cares about - they come from the end of the line, most of 'em, small towns you never heard of - pulaski, tennessee, brandon, mississippi, pork bend, utah, wampum, pennsylvania. two years' high school's about it, maybe if they're lucky a job waiting for 'em back in a factory, but most of 'em got nothing, they're poor, they're the unwanted of our society, yet they're fighting for our society and our freedom and what we call america, they're the bottom of the barrel - and they know it, maybe that's why they call themselves 'grunts' cause a 'grunt' can take it, can take anything. they're the backbone of this country, grandma, the best i've ever seen, the heart and soul - i've found it finally, way down here in the mud - maybe from down here i can start up again and be something i can be proud of, without having to fake it, maybe .  i can see something i don't yet see, learn something i don't yet know .  i miss you, i miss you very much, tell mom i miss her too - chris.
wake up!
it's your shift, man .
i'm hit .
doc .  tell me the truth, don't lie to me.
i was not .  it was your .
do you .  do you know you're gonna die .  big harold? .  do you feel like .  like .  everything's gonna be fine and then .
it's not .  so bad .  dying. how long .  it .
i didn't fall asleep, sergeant, junior .
okay - got light duty, three days.
what you got there - beers?
uh, looks like it?
i got light duty, sarge. doctor said to take it easy couple days.
 32. 332 days.
i volunteered.
yeah, i dropped out of college and told 'em i wanted infantry, combat, and nam .
didn't make much sense. wasn't learning anything .  and why should just the poor kids go to the war - and the college kids get away with it.
nah .
no, thanks .
don't feel it.
 you know that night we got hit .  i .
i think i'm starting to feel that stuff .
what are the heads?
what?
yeah.
yeah. no pain in my neck now. feels good.
 but what'd she do?
but what'd she actually do?
god!
elizabeth?
jennifer?
dawn .
new year's day, 1968. just another day. staying alive. there's been a lot of movement neat the cambodian border, regiments of nva moving across. a lot of little firefights, ambushes, we drop a lot of bombs, then we walk through the napalm like ghosts in a landscape .
where?
we had to get to the village before dark so we left elias with some men to keep looking and to wait for the engineers .  but it was king who found him .  about 1000 yards downriver, not far from the village - it was the end of the mystery.
 the village, which had stood for maybe a thousand years, didn't know we were coming that day. if they had they would have run .  barnes was at the eye of our rage - and through him, our captain ahab - we would set things right again. that day we loved him
la dai! la dai! get the fuck outta there!
they're scared? what about me! i'm sick of this shit man, i"m sick of this shit! they don't want us here! who do you think they're fighting for! get outta there!
get up out of there! .  you see i didn't wanna hurt you. why didn't you come out, when i said so hunh! why? why! why? don't you listen .  what are you smiling at hunh! fucking assholes!
dance you one-legged motherfucker, dance!!!
let her go! you hear me! you asshole! let her go!
it's okay .  it's okay .
it's okay, it's okay .
where's he form?
and he still wanted to come back?
does he have a metal plate in his head?
where's elias come from?
three years, jesus, he's crazy as barnes .
 i can't sleep, why don't you get some sack time.
 beautiful night.
that's a nice way of putting it.
barnes got it in for you, don't he?
and you, do you believe?
you really think so .  us?
do you believe that stuff about .  knowing you're gonna die?
 you ever think about reincarnation, all that stuff?
what's going on?
who's on point?
where's lerner?
oh jesus!
lerner! lerner, can you hear me man?
gator! gator! i'm gonna get you out man. you're gonna be okay gator .  okay?
take care of him doc! please!
hang tough, gator. hang in there, man, you're gonna be ok .  just hang on.
i'll go with you.
get em!!!!!
yeah! i got two of them fuckers .
 see them go down? like fuckin' target practice man, fuck you charlie!! ho chi minh sucks dead dick! .  crawford!
oh man! .  man!
 but 'lias is still out there.
he's dead! where? .  you saw him?
he killed him. i know he did. i saw his eyes when he came back in .
proof's in the eyes. when you know you know. you were there rhah - i know what you were thinking. i say we frag the fucker. tonight.
then what do you suggest big shot?
fuck this shit!
you're wrong man! any way you cut it rhah, barnes is a murderer.
i was wrong.
kill you motherfucker!!!
they sent us back into the valley the next day - about 2,000 metres from cambodia - into a battalion perimeter. alpha company had been hit hard the day before by a sizeable force and charlie company had been probed that night. there were other battalions in the valley, we weren't the only ones but we knew we were going to be the bait to lure them out. and somewhere out there was the entire 141st nva regiment.
 there's nobody.
who gives a shit!
y'ever get caught in a mistake king and you just can't get out of it?
not just me .  it's the way the whole thing works. people like elias get wasted and people like barnes just go on making up rules any way they want and what do we do, we just sit around in the middle and suck on it! we just don't add up to dry shit.
hey that's great king, that's great .  you take it on home for me, you tell 'em king .  got your address right? you know where you can reach men, man. anytime!
i'll walk you out .
uh sure .
trip flares! .  rodriguez's hole.
rpgs! shit!
over here!
rhah! what's going on. rodriguez's hole just got
hold it! who is it!
no!
it's the ambush! in here, man! hurry.
you go.
oh no!
there!
out of the hole! fast!
goddamit francis! move your fucking ass. now .  they gonna blow it!
die you motherfuckers!!! yaaaaaaaaa!!!
die you motherfuckers!!!
barnes!
nooooooooo!
yeah. how 'bout you?
you bet.
I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves - and the enemy was in us .  The war is over for me now, but it will always be there - the rest of my days. As I am sure Elias will be - fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called possession of my soul .  There are times since I have felt like the child born of those two fathers .  but be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning to this life