The Bluester Emotion



‘No battle plan survives contact with the enemy’ Those words from Chief Gunnery Sergeant Forster were running through my mind as we ran into battle. My comrades LT Umar911, Legionary Steve Harvey and I charged together into the jungle. I bashed my mag against my helmet and loaded my M16, we knew this was likely a one way trip, but it’s what we signed on for.

Approaching Hanoi Umar whispered into my ear, “Watch my six Chief, we got charlies topside”. We didn’t plan for this, LT obviously had a plan but it was too late, gunshots rang out all around. They’d sprung a trap for us, “gosh darn commies” were Harvey’s last words as he was struck down beside me.

I took cover with Umar, but it was too late, the Vietcong found us and dragged us to their camp. I spent three weeks knee deep in a bamboo cage with Umar and ten fresh faced recruits. Every day three of us would be taken out, only two ever came back; sometimes even less. One of the recruits, Bulluk cried out “It’s over, we’re all gonna die”. Umar, after seeing his childhood friend massacred before his own eyes retorted “Death? What do you know about death?”. It was at this point I broke, I lay in the parasite ridden cage, the murky water ran up to my chin and the tears began to flow. Seeing my friends fall all around me, the horrors I’d witnessed I couldn’t bear the thought of. Umar, the lifeblood of our company grabbed me by my neck and shouted “ARE YOU QUITTING ON ME?! WELL, ARE YOU? Then quit you slimy, walrus looking piece of heck”. Seeing the desperation in his eyes, the pain crawling out of his voice. He cried out to me, we’d been through so much I knew I couldn’t quit, we’d make it out for sure, together.

It was January 30th the Vietcong had made large advancements against the US military, the commander of their camp made sure to let the five of us remaining know that. We couldn’t know whether this was true or just another psychological trick employed by Vietnam, it didn’t matter I could see the fear in our boys’ eyes, I decided to try and raise their spirits with a joke “we’ve been kicking other peoples’ asses for so long I figured it’s time we got our kicked”. Needless to say, it didn’t go down well. Private Kearney at that moment tried to drown himself, Umar tried to save him but we’d been drained so much from our time in the cage. We couldn’t save him sadly, I guess he’s with God now, though I could see no sign of a god existing if we could go through this.

The Vietcong came by and decided four was a good number for their ‘games’. We were all sat around a circular table and their commander placed a revolver in the middle of the table.

One bullet was loaded, we knew what this meant.

They were playing games with our lives, toying with us like a cat to a mouse; and we’d been caught. The gun was passed around as played Russian Roulette, one last fight for our lives. I thought this was the end as I saw Private Robson shoot himself. Watching his lifeless corpse drop to the floor will be an image painted into my mind forever, the look in his eyes the split second before he knew it was over. I thought this couldn’t get worse until LT Umar911 picked up the revolver in round 2. It was impossible to know for sure, but there was a sense around us, the atmosphere around us shifted. The shadows of the trees from the jungle engulfed us, we knew this was the end as he raised the gun to his head. To see one’s friend fall before your eyes, it’s a harrowing experience, the experiences we’d shared, everything we’d seen and been through. I was sure Umar would make it out for sure, it seemed impossible for the most optimistic man I’d ever met to be taken down by Vietcong forces.

The two of us left: General Podski and I, were thrown back into our cage, due to play their games again the next day. Podski turned to me and muttered “The first casualty of war is innocence; how can any human do this to us”. I was worn out from their mind games, so I knelt down in our little patch of swamp and passed out.

Waking up the next day I made my peace and was ready to meet my maker. We were both ready when in the distance I could make out the sound of US Huey choppers coming towards our position, each with a radio on either side, playing Fortunate Son. I thought at this moment I was dreaming, perhaps it was simply a mirage created from the scorching, disease ridden swamp I lay in. But this was no dream, Chief Gunnery Sergeant Forster and his 3rd marine corps, they stormed the camp, laying waste to the Vietcong troops and everything around them. “Flamethrowers. We’ll burn ‘em out” I heard the sarge cry. They broke into the cage and dragged Podski and I out. We were loaded into the Huey and flown back to base. While flying back, Podksi who looked weak from the diseases or the parasites we’d been swimming with whispered to me “someone once wrote ‘Hell is the impossibility of reason’. That’s what this place feels like. Hell.” He didn’t say another word on the trip back to base. It was there I found out he’d succumbed to swamp fever on the way back to base. I now know what he meant, this was hell. But to me… This was this, nothing more and nothing less. I was numb to it all everything I went through, everything I see now and everything I will ever see. I came out of ‘nam a changed man.

This was the last time I ever played Minecraft hunger games.