"Gustav Hasvord. The Short-Timers " - читать интересную книгу автора

old man had been run over by a six-by as he squatted in the road taking a
shit. All I remember is that when I marched by, flies exploded off the old
man like pieces of shrapnel.


I got my first confirmed kill with India Three-Five.
I was writing a feature article about how the grunts at the Rockpile on
Route Nine had to sweep the road for mines every morning before any traffic
could use the road. There was a fat gunny who insisted on walking point with
a metal detector. The fat gunny wanted to protect his people. He believed
that fate killed the careless. He stepped on an antitank mine. A man is not
supposed to be heavy enough to detonate an antitank mine, but the gunny was
pretty fat.
The earth opened up and hell came out with a roar that jarred my bones.
The fat gunny was launched into the clean blue sky, green and round and
loose-jointed like a broken doll. I watched the fat gunny float up to heaven
and then a wall of heat slammed into me and I collided with the deck.
The fat gunny floated back to earth.
Although shrapnel had stung my face and peppered my flak jacket, I was
not afraid. I was very calm. From the moment the mine detonated I knew I was
a dead man, and there was nothing I could do.
Behind me a man was cursing. The man was a Navy corpsman. The
corpsman's right hand had been split open and he was holding his fingers
together with his good hand and cursing and yelling for a corpsman.
Then I understood that the "shrapnel" I'd felt had only been shattered
gravel.
Grunts from the security squad were crawling into the bushes, turning
outboard, weapons ready.
Still confused about why I was still alive I got to my feet and
double-timed to the little pit that had been torn into the road by the
explosion.
Two grunts were double-timing across a meadow toward a treeline. I
followed them, my finger on the trigger of my M-16, eager to pour invisible
darts of destruction into the shadows.
The two grunts and I ran until we passed through the treeline and
emerged on the edge of a vast rice paddy. There the fat gunny was floating
on his back in the shallow water, surrounded by dark pieces of
do-it-yourself fertilizer.
The grunts spread a poncho under him while I stood security. Both of
the gunny's legs had been torn off at the pelvis. I saw one of his fat legs
floating nearby so I picked it up out of the water and threw it in on top of
him.
We all took hold of the poncho and started carrying the heavy load back
to the road. I was breathing hard, and the black anger was pounding inside
my chest. I was watching the trees, hoping I'd see movement.
And then out of nowhere a man appeared, a tiny, ancient farmer who was
at the same time ridiculous and dignified. The ancient farmer had a hoe on
his shoulder and was wearing the obligatory conical white hat. His chest was
bony and he looked so old. His sturdy legs were scarred. The ancient farmer
didn't speak to us. He just stood there beside the trail with rice shoots in