Letter to Emil

     Dear Uncle Emil,

     Did dying ever enter your mind before you were shipped overseas?  Don't know why but it hasn't entered mine.  I know it's a possibility but the thought hasn't really gotten hold of me yet.  It's more something I make jokes about.  
     Like when we were going through our AIT graduation ceremony.  Now, that was funny.  Some guy who claimed to be our battalion commander - don't know if he actually was 'cause we'd never seen him before.  For that matter we'd never seen our company commander or even our platoon leader - stood up on a stage and called us diamonds in the rough.  We were down below sitting in the auditorium.  Sure didn't seem all that military.  No flags or marching around, soldiers singing about killin' a Vietcong, blood-thirsty displays of us getting on line, bayonets fixed, charging dummies that look like Spiro Agnew, none of that good stuff.  Nope we just sat there, in an auditorium.  No movie, no play, just the guy up front telling us we need the polishing of combat to make us into finished diamonds or maybe corpses, depending on how it all worked out.
     Anyhow, before the man walked out on stage to thunderous silence, I said a couple of things out loud that got me a few 'shut up Archie's'.  One of 'em was "I wonder what size body bag I take?"  Don't know why that'd upset anyone seeing as how that question had no doubt crossed the mind of most every man-jack in the place.  Can't say I was all that eager to crawl into one of the bags just to find out.  On the other hand it was an honest question.  Should I ever be slid into one I probably wouldn't be aware enough to check out the size label.  
     A minute later I added, "Just think guys, in three weeks we'll be on our way to Vietnam."  Didn't go over big either.  Like I said, we know where we're going but sure don't want to think about it.  Hogs to the slaughter.  Not a one of us seems excited about where we're going.  But then, no one talks much about it.  We had this one guy who took a stand.  Went on a hunger strike to either protest the war or show that he wasn't all that happy about having to take part in it.  Hard to separate fear and morality.  He stopped eating for about a week then disappeared.  I suppose he'll spend the rest of his enlistment in the stockade.  Don't know why but his protest pissed me off.  A lot of others also.  It's not that I think this is a good war because I don't.  But I just can't help thinking he chickened out.  Wasn't able to suck it up and do something completely stupid that might cost him his life.  Kind of like he spit at us because we were going.  That's not exactly it but it sure is part of how I feel.  I wish I wasn't here but I am so I might as well finish what I started.  And if I don't go, someone else will take my place.  Yeah, I guess we're screwed, glued and tattooed.

     Archie