The War Within by Yolanda Wallace Read Free Book Online Page B

housed in the stockade there. More were arriving every day. Meredith had heard the place was a powder keg waiting to blow. She hoped she’d be situated in another post before the explosion occurred. From the looks of things, though, no place in Vietnam was safe.
    She held on to the metal support rail above her head as the deuce and a half, a two-and-a-half-ton transport truck, bounced over the pitted road. She braced herself each time the driver hit a pothole, preparing for the inevitable explosion. Just last week, a jeep filled with soldiers on leave had driven over a roadside bomb on the way back from one of the bars in town. Ambulances had been dispatched to the scene right away, but all four men were DOA by the time they reached the hospital. With the amount of damage inflicted, Elias had certainly had his work cut out for him making the bodies look presentable for their journey home.
    What made a terrible situation even worse was the discovery that the explosive device had been crafted from material the US Army had unwittingly provided—dud bombs that had been scavenged by locals and fashioned into new weapons less obvious and more insidious than their previous incarnations. In Saigon, such attacks were rare. In country, they happened nearly every day. Meredith was headed in country.
    She wondered how much time she would be able to spend away from base. How much time she would spend putting herself at risk.
    She fingered the stainless steel dog tags dangling from the ball chain around her neck. Her name, Social Security number, blood type, and religion were stamped into the metal. If something happened to her, one of the dog tags would stay with her, the other would be collected and used to help treat her injuries or, if the unthinkable happened, identify her remains.
    “I thought you were Protestant, not Catholic,” Robinson said.
    “I am. Why?”
    Robinson pointed to her dog tags. “You’re fondling those things like they’re rosary beads.”
    “Nervous habit.” Meredith tucked the tags inside her shirt and fastened her top button to keep them out of easy reach.
    “Whatever works. Don’t let me stop you.”
    Robinson leaned back in her seat as if reclining in an easy chair instead of being tossed to and fro by a driver who seemed more concerned with speed than safety. Meredith envied her ability to look at ease no matter how stressful the situation.
    “Did you get posted to Long Binh?” she asked.
    “I think everyone did.” Robinson pushed herself out of her seat, stepped over the duffels piled in the aisle, and sat next to Meredith after one of the other nurses moved over to give her room. The various conversations going on around them continued without discernible pause. “The CO said Long Binh is going to serve as the US Army Republic of Vietnam HQ. Most of the USARV command and the units stationed in Saigon will be moved there if they haven’t already.”
    The day the postings were announced, the other nurses had chatted about the assignment for hours. Meredith had been left not knowing what to believe. Was Long Binh a resort paradise filled with swimming pools, driving ranges, basketball courts, more restaurants and nightclubs than you could count, and an honest to God movie theater that played some of Hollywood’s latest and greatest, or was it home to one of the busiest evac hospitals in Vietnam and a stockade teeming with angry prisoners? Robinson was the only person she knew who might know for sure.
    “What’s it like?”
    “Everything you want it to be and then some. There’s so much to do you never have to leave the base. If you want to party and have fun, Long Binh’s the place. If you want to see all the horrors this war has to offer, Long Binh’s the place for that, too.”
    “It sounds so big.”
    Meredith was overwhelmed not by the size of the base but by the realization she was inching closer to the front lines. Closer to danger. She didn’t know how to give voice to her