If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O’Brien Read Free Book Online Page A

to report to him that night. “You two puss are gonna have a helluva time. You’re gonna get to pull guard together, all alone and in the dark, nobody watchin’. You two are gonna walk ’round and ’round the company area, holdin’ hands, and you can talk about politics and nooky all the goddamn night. Shit, I wish I had a goddamn camera.”
    We reported to Blyton at 2100 hours, and he gave us a flashlight and black guard helmets and told us to get the hell out of his sight, he couldn’t stand to look at pussy.
    Outside, we laughed. Erik said the bastard didn’t have the guts to order us to hold hands.
    We put on the black helmets, snapped on the flashlight, and began making the rounds of the company area. It was a good, dry night. Things were peaceful. For more than two hours, we walked and enjoyed the night. No barracks quarrels, no noise. A sense of privacy and peace. We talked about whatever came to mind—our families, the coming war, hopes for the future, books, people, girls—and it was a good time. We felt … what? Free. In control. Pardoned. We walked and walked, not talking when there was no desire to talk, talking when the words came, walking, pretending it was the deep woods, a midnight hike, just walking and feeling good.
    Much later, after perhaps fifty turns around the company area, we stumbled across a trainee making an unauthorized phone call. We debated about whether to turn the poor kid in. On the one hand, we sympathized; on the other hand, we were tired and it was late and our feet were hurting and we had a hunch that the kid’s punishment would be to relieve us for the night. We gave Blyton the man’s name. In twenty minutes the kid came out, asked for the flashlight, and told us to go to bed. We laughed. We congratulated ourselves. We felt smart. And later—much later—we wondered if maybe Blyton hadn’t won a big victory that night.
    Basic training nearly ended, we marched finally to a processing station. We heard our numbers called off, our new names. Some to go to transportation school—Erik. Some to repeat basic training—Kline. Some to become mechanics. Some to become clerks. And some to attend advanced infantry training, to become foot soldiers—Harry and the squad leader and I. Then we marched to graduation ceremonies, and then we marched back, singing.
I wanna go to Vietnam
Just to kill ol’ Charlie Cong.
Am I right or wrong?
Am I goin’ strong?
    Buses—olive drab, with white painted numbers and driven by bored-looking Spec 4s—came to take us away. Erik and I stood by a window in the barracks and watched Blyton talk with parents of the new soldiers. He was smiling.
    “We’ll get the bastard,” Erik said. We could’ve picked off the man with one shot from an M-14, no problem. He’d taught us well. We laughed and shook our fists at the window. Too easy to shoot him.
    “There’s not much I can say to you,” Erik said. “I had this awful suspicion they’d screw you, make you a grunt. Maybe you can break a leg during advanced training; pretend you’re insane.” Erik had decided at the beginning of basic to enlist for an extra year so as to escape infantry duty. I had gambled, thinking they would use me for more than a pair of legs, certain that someone would see the value of my ass behind a typewriter or a Xerox machine. We’d joked about the gamble for two months.
    He had won, I had lost.
    I shook Erik’s hand in the latrine and walked with him to his bus and shook his hand again.

Six
Escape
          I n advanced infantry training, the soldier learns new ways to kill.
    Claymore mines, booby traps, the M-60 machine gun, the M-70 grenade launcher, the .45-caliber pistol, the M-16 automatic rifle.
    On the outside, AIT looks like basic training. Lots of push-ups, lots of shoe-shining and firing ranges and midnight marches. But AIT is not basic training. The difference is the certainty of going to war: pending doom that comes in with each day’s light and