Culture of War: Lost Comrades
“God dammit, Rick! Get down! You’re gonna get yourself killed!”
I was running from behind cover to a ditch, where our friend Billy was laying. Bullets flew around me, I was only yards away. I was going to be able to- BAM!
I awoke in a hospital bed. Tubes were attached to me, and I noticed one of those machines that measured your heart beat – I never learned what they were called. Looking around, I noticed I was all alone in my hospital bed. “Hello?” I called out. No response. “HELLO?” I yelled this time. A nurse came running in. “Oh! Oh my god! You’re awake!” She rushed off, yelling, “Doctor! Doctor!” A tall, slender man walked in a couple minutes later, with a name tag reading “Dr. Gray.”
“It’s good to see that you’re awake. You’ve been out for quite some time.” He started examining the machines around me, writing on a piece of paper that rest on a clipboard. “Well, everything looks okay. You’ll be out of here in a couple of days!” The doctor went for the door.
“Wait! What happened? Why am I here?”
Dr. Gray turned back to me with a weird look in his eyes, and said, “Can’t you tell, son? You were in a coma.” He then left. Not a minute passed when another figure stood in the doorway. It was Billy. It was not the Billy I was accustomed to, though; I barely recognized this new Billy. His once soft face looked hardened, and an eye patch covered up his right eye. I noticed crutches under both of his arms. He stepped in, and I could see that his left leg was cut off at the knee. I frowned.
“Billy, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me, Rick. How are you doing?”
“I’m… I’m confused. What year is it?”
“I’m sure you are. It’s 1953. The war ended a month ago.”
“One moment I’m running after… Who was it? It was you! One moment I’m running towards you, and the next… I’m here. What the hell happened, Billy? What happened to you? What happened to Robbie? Where… where is Robbie?” Billy sighed.
“It’s a long story, Rick… It was 1951, soon after you ran after me…”
“‘Rick!’ Robbie screamed out while leaping over his cover. He ran to you, and picked you up, and pulled you back to cover. He did the same to me. Brave man, Robbie was. You were unconscious, and I was barely awake. It seemed like hours passed before the gunfire subsided and the choppers arrived. I passed out, but when I woke up, we were both in a tent. Robbie was there, talking to a medic.
‘I’m afraid he’ll no longer be able to see out of his right eye,’ said the medic. Robbie frowned.
‘Does this mean he’ll be going home?’
‘I’m ‘fraid not. We need as many men as we can get, and he still got one good eye. He got himself couple more days o’ rest, then he back out there, fightin’.’
Robbie sighed. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t you get too comfortable ‘ere, neither. You be headin’ out wit’ ‘im.’ The medic left.
‘Prick.’ Robbie’s 6’3” tall, thick body slowly crept towards my bedside. I had fallen back asleep. His blue eyes gazed upon my now one-eyed face, his long, brown hair swept to the side of his face, out of his eyes. He shoved me. ‘Come on. Wake up, Cyclops.’
I slowly stirred. ‘Huh?’
‘We got two days rest, then it back ta’ fightin’.’
‘Why are we… Where am I?’ My arms went to my face, feeling the bandage that covered where my right eye used to be. ‘What happened?’
‘Bomb went off. Piece of shrapnel stuck into your eye,’ Robbie explained. I sighed. I liked my right eye. ‘I bet ya’ look pretty bad ass with an eye patch.’
“Think it’ll send the ladies crawling?’
‘Don’t get ya’self carried away.” Robbied laughed. “We go back to fightin’ in two days. Get ya’ rest.’
The rate at which those next two days passed was unreal. It went by in the blink of an eye. That’s not to say it wasn’t nice, though. Actually, I was kind of happy that I had lost my eye. The two days of rest were so peaceful, I would’ve given anything for it. Sleeping, drinking, smoking, conversing. This is what those two days consisted of, and it was wonderful. But soon the third day came, and my happiness soon dropped into a sense of sadness.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Where was I during all of this?” I asked Billy.
“Oh, right. You had yet to wake up during all of this. On the third day, when we were sent back to battle, you were loaded into a helicopter and flown back home, where you could be put in a proper hospital. Ya’ lucky bastard,” Billy explained. “Can I continue with my story now?”
“Sure, sure.”
“Thanks. Now where was I…”
“Ah, right. It was the third day, and I was upset that my peaceful days were now over. I was sleeping that morning, when our commanding officer, his name was Frank, I think, woke us up, shouting, ‘Come on, ya’ pussies! Get your asses up! Break time is over!’
‘God dammit,’ said Robbie, rubbing his eyes. All of our company eventually stirred, and we were up and ready to go in ten minutes.
‘Y’all are the slowest group of soldiers I’ve ever seen! Get your acts together, ya’ pansies!’ the commanding officer shouted. He stood around 5’11, and was a smaller fellow with blue eyes and blonde hair. I could tell he was a ladies man back home, and that he had this smug attitude before coming to the war.
Robbie brushed past Frank, and mumbled, ‘As you wish, asshole.’
‘What was that, soldier?! What the hell did you just say to me?’
Robbie turned around, standing straight and looking Frank right in the eye. ‘As you wish, asshole.’ All of us looked at Robbie like he was crazy. He had never liked obeying orders, but I had never seen him act this way.
‘Robbie, st-.’
‘Shut the hell up, Billy.’ I retreated. He could get his ass in shit if he wanted to. I wasn’t going to help him.
‘You’re friend there is right. You best be watchin’ what you say, soldier,’ Frank said. ‘What’s yer’ name, soldier?’ Robbie just stood there, looking Frank in the eyes. ‘I don’t think you heard me… What is your god damn name?’
‘No.’
‘No what?’
‘Fuck off.’ Frank had had enough of Robbie’s behavior. He took a swing at Robbie’s face. Robbie quickly caught his punch, and threw a punch right back at Frank’s face. It wasn’t too hard, though. Robbie made sure of that. He threw one just hard enough for him to feel it, but not one so hard that it would knock the poor man out, which was something Robbie knew he could do. Frank stumbled back a bit, but didn’t hesitate in throwing his whole body into a punch at Robbie. Robbie simply stepped to the side, and kicked at Frank’s shin, sending him flying to the ground.
I looked around at my comrades. They wanted to cheer, I could just tell, but they didn’t dare. They knew of the amount of trouble Robbie would get in for this, and stayed quiet. But I’m getting sidetracked. Let me finish telling you about how Robbie kicked the shit out of our asshole commanding officer.
Robbie spat on him, saying, ‘Get up.’ Frank didn’t move. ‘I said, get up.’ Frank slowly rose, and Robbie grabbed him by the shirt, and punched him in the mouth. A bit of blood squirted onto Robbie’s face. ‘Now… what was it you called us earlier? I think you called us something along the lines of pansy. Remember?’ Frank nodded. ‘Good. Now, you can obviously see that upset me. Would you like to apologize?’
‘Go to hell,’ Frank gurgled. Robbie quickly popped him again. Blood leaked out of his mouth, and some of it landed on Robbie’s face again.
‘Sorry, I didn’t understand that because of your busted lip. You should get that looked at. Now, what were you saying?’
‘I’m… I’m sorry,’ Frank tried to say.
‘You’re what?’
‘I’m sorry!’ Frank said with blood in his mouth. Robbie headbutted the man, and let him fall to the ground.
‘Good. What’re you doing on the ground? Get up. We gotta go soon, remember?’
And that poor man did get up and we packed up our things and left without delay. We grabbed our M1s, and loaded up onto the chopper. I made sure to sit next to Robbie, and a while after we took off, I looked towards him and said, ‘Are you fucking crazy?’
He shrugged. That’s all he did. Shrug. I loved Robbie, loved him like a brother, but man, he really knew how to piss me off.
‘Are you just looking to piss people off today?’ He shrugged again. The little shit. I just sat quiet, not wanting to get into a fight right before we went into war.
We exited the chopper two miles south of the 38th Parallel. We hiked towards our troops as backup, to see we were backed up about a mile behind the Parallel. I saw men ducked behind trees and piles of dirt, peeking to fire every now and then, while seeing other men get carted off the field, some with simple bullet wounds, while others were in pieces. I frowned at the sight of the battlefield. I was lucky to have lost only my eye.
I heard a man, he was probably an officer, yell out, “Reinforcements are here! Push forward!” Then I heard a South Korean man yell something out Korean, or whatever the hell they spoke. He was probably saying the same thing.
We immediately ran to some cover as bullets started flying towards us. Jeremy-
“Jeremy Johnson?” I asked.
“Yeah, I was about to say that. Can you shut your trap?”
Jeremy was the first to eat it. He took a bullet right between eyes. I’d like to imagine it was a quick, painless death, but who knows if those actually exist. Another man fell as we ran for cover, but I can’t remember his name to save my life. He was one of those quiet fucks, one who wasn’t very fit for war.
After what seemed hours, we pushed the North Koreans back to the 38th Parallel. We were once again even. Then I heard a yell. “MacArthur’s troops have landed in Inchon! They’re pushing the Koreans back!” We cheered, and pushed on.
As we kept running, fighting, shooting, ducking, hiding, killing, y’know, all that “fun” war stuff, that asshole commander of our’s, Frank, he decided this would be a good time to get back at our poor friend Robbie. While Robbie was taking a breather and deciding which way to go next, Frank took a rock to the back of his head. Robbie went out cold.
I was the only one to see this. I ran and tackled Frank to the hard dirt, and we rolled around, one of us trying to get an upper hand on the other. Eventually, I found myself on top of him, and gave him two good punches to the nose and lips (his lips were still sore) before he pulled onto to my shirt and gave me a fierce headbutt. This made me extremely dizzy. He took this opportunity to put his legs to my chest and kick me back. This prick had some strong legs, Rick. I flew back and landed on a landmine.
It blew up immediately, and before I knew it my right leg was just about everywhere besides the one place it should be. I immediately passed out from the pain.
I awoke with my vision hazy. I was still on the battlefield. I saw Robbie. He was mumbling crazy words; he obviously had a concussion. Other soldiers looked at him like he was crazy. They didn’t see what Frank had done to him. Then, out of nowhere, Robbie started running. He just ran right into the thick of the battle. A spray of blood came from his head before he hit the ground. I fell unconscious once more.
“Robbie’s dead?!” I shouted.
“Yeah, he is.” Billy frowned. “He was a good man.”
A tear fell from my eye. Robbie was my best friend. Damn this coma. If I was there, I could’ve helped him. “This is your fault!” I yelled at Billy.
“How the hell is Robbie’s death my fault?”
“You should’ve stopped him from getting all sassy with that Frank fella! You could’ve held him back, calmed him down! But no! You let him do his thing, and now he’s dead because of you! You’re a coward, you know that?”
“What the hell did you just say, Rick?” He hobbled over to me, a look of sadness in his eyes. “Listen here, brother. I loved him just as much as you did! You got some nerve, ya’ know? Callin’ me a coward!” He was yelling now. “Fuck you, Rick! While you were in here, sleeping your ass off, we were out there, killing others, watching our friends die! Do you know what it was like to watch him get shot? Do you!?”
“No, I don’t. But I-“
“Exactly! You don’t! You were out there for how long, a week?!” He was in my face now. “You don’t know what it was like! You never saw someone die. You never killed someone. You barely saw me take some shrapnel to the eye. You may have been enrolled, but you’re just like all the civilians that stayed here in their cozy homes. You’ll never know what war was like!”
Tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m… I’m sorry, Billy.” But he went on with his rant.
“Everyone here thinks they actually know what war is like. They see movies, and read books, but they don’t actually know! They get fed bullshit. Bullshit saying that war is this glorified thing. Well, guess what, Rick? It ain’t!”
I remained silent. Billy’s face was red, his nostrils were flared, his eyes glistened. What had come over me to say those words? I had no right.
“Y’know what, Rick? I’m just gon’ head out for the day. I’ll see you tomorrow… maybe.” He then stormed out, faster than I’d ever see anyone on crutches walk. A nurse came in after him.
“I heard yelling. Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Yes, everything’s fine,” I replied.
Billy didn’t come to see me the next day, and I never heard the rest of his story. That was actually the last time I saw Billy. I probably deserve to have lost him as a friend, after saying what I said. He was right. I didn’t know, and I will never know.
The End.
I was running from behind cover to a ditch, where our friend Billy was laying. Bullets flew around me, I was only yards away. I was going to be able to- BAM!
I awoke in a hospital bed. Tubes were attached to me, and I noticed one of those machines that measured your heart beat – I never learned what they were called. Looking around, I noticed I was all alone in my hospital bed. “Hello?” I called out. No response. “HELLO?” I yelled this time. A nurse came running in. “Oh! Oh my god! You’re awake!” She rushed off, yelling, “Doctor! Doctor!” A tall, slender man walked in a couple minutes later, with a name tag reading “Dr. Gray.”
“It’s good to see that you’re awake. You’ve been out for quite some time.” He started examining the machines around me, writing on a piece of paper that rest on a clipboard. “Well, everything looks okay. You’ll be out of here in a couple of days!” The doctor went for the door.
“Wait! What happened? Why am I here?”
Dr. Gray turned back to me with a weird look in his eyes, and said, “Can’t you tell, son? You were in a coma.” He then left. Not a minute passed when another figure stood in the doorway. It was Billy. It was not the Billy I was accustomed to, though; I barely recognized this new Billy. His once soft face looked hardened, and an eye patch covered up his right eye. I noticed crutches under both of his arms. He stepped in, and I could see that his left leg was cut off at the knee. I frowned.
“Billy, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me, Rick. How are you doing?”
“I’m… I’m confused. What year is it?”
“I’m sure you are. It’s 1953. The war ended a month ago.”
“One moment I’m running after… Who was it? It was you! One moment I’m running towards you, and the next… I’m here. What the hell happened, Billy? What happened to you? What happened to Robbie? Where… where is Robbie?” Billy sighed.
“It’s a long story, Rick… It was 1951, soon after you ran after me…”
“‘Rick!’ Robbie screamed out while leaping over his cover. He ran to you, and picked you up, and pulled you back to cover. He did the same to me. Brave man, Robbie was. You were unconscious, and I was barely awake. It seemed like hours passed before the gunfire subsided and the choppers arrived. I passed out, but when I woke up, we were both in a tent. Robbie was there, talking to a medic.
‘I’m afraid he’ll no longer be able to see out of his right eye,’ said the medic. Robbie frowned.
‘Does this mean he’ll be going home?’
‘I’m ‘fraid not. We need as many men as we can get, and he still got one good eye. He got himself couple more days o’ rest, then he back out there, fightin’.’
Robbie sighed. ‘Thanks.’
‘Don’t you get too comfortable ‘ere, neither. You be headin’ out wit’ ‘im.’ The medic left.
‘Prick.’ Robbie’s 6’3” tall, thick body slowly crept towards my bedside. I had fallen back asleep. His blue eyes gazed upon my now one-eyed face, his long, brown hair swept to the side of his face, out of his eyes. He shoved me. ‘Come on. Wake up, Cyclops.’
I slowly stirred. ‘Huh?’
‘We got two days rest, then it back ta’ fightin’.’
‘Why are we… Where am I?’ My arms went to my face, feeling the bandage that covered where my right eye used to be. ‘What happened?’
‘Bomb went off. Piece of shrapnel stuck into your eye,’ Robbie explained. I sighed. I liked my right eye. ‘I bet ya’ look pretty bad ass with an eye patch.’
“Think it’ll send the ladies crawling?’
‘Don’t get ya’self carried away.” Robbied laughed. “We go back to fightin’ in two days. Get ya’ rest.’
The rate at which those next two days passed was unreal. It went by in the blink of an eye. That’s not to say it wasn’t nice, though. Actually, I was kind of happy that I had lost my eye. The two days of rest were so peaceful, I would’ve given anything for it. Sleeping, drinking, smoking, conversing. This is what those two days consisted of, and it was wonderful. But soon the third day came, and my happiness soon dropped into a sense of sadness.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Where was I during all of this?” I asked Billy.
“Oh, right. You had yet to wake up during all of this. On the third day, when we were sent back to battle, you were loaded into a helicopter and flown back home, where you could be put in a proper hospital. Ya’ lucky bastard,” Billy explained. “Can I continue with my story now?”
“Sure, sure.”
“Thanks. Now where was I…”
“Ah, right. It was the third day, and I was upset that my peaceful days were now over. I was sleeping that morning, when our commanding officer, his name was Frank, I think, woke us up, shouting, ‘Come on, ya’ pussies! Get your asses up! Break time is over!’
‘God dammit,’ said Robbie, rubbing his eyes. All of our company eventually stirred, and we were up and ready to go in ten minutes.
‘Y’all are the slowest group of soldiers I’ve ever seen! Get your acts together, ya’ pansies!’ the commanding officer shouted. He stood around 5’11, and was a smaller fellow with blue eyes and blonde hair. I could tell he was a ladies man back home, and that he had this smug attitude before coming to the war.
Robbie brushed past Frank, and mumbled, ‘As you wish, asshole.’
‘What was that, soldier?! What the hell did you just say to me?’
Robbie turned around, standing straight and looking Frank right in the eye. ‘As you wish, asshole.’ All of us looked at Robbie like he was crazy. He had never liked obeying orders, but I had never seen him act this way.
‘Robbie, st-.’
‘Shut the hell up, Billy.’ I retreated. He could get his ass in shit if he wanted to. I wasn’t going to help him.
‘You’re friend there is right. You best be watchin’ what you say, soldier,’ Frank said. ‘What’s yer’ name, soldier?’ Robbie just stood there, looking Frank in the eyes. ‘I don’t think you heard me… What is your god damn name?’
‘No.’
‘No what?’
‘Fuck off.’ Frank had had enough of Robbie’s behavior. He took a swing at Robbie’s face. Robbie quickly caught his punch, and threw a punch right back at Frank’s face. It wasn’t too hard, though. Robbie made sure of that. He threw one just hard enough for him to feel it, but not one so hard that it would knock the poor man out, which was something Robbie knew he could do. Frank stumbled back a bit, but didn’t hesitate in throwing his whole body into a punch at Robbie. Robbie simply stepped to the side, and kicked at Frank’s shin, sending him flying to the ground.
I looked around at my comrades. They wanted to cheer, I could just tell, but they didn’t dare. They knew of the amount of trouble Robbie would get in for this, and stayed quiet. But I’m getting sidetracked. Let me finish telling you about how Robbie kicked the shit out of our asshole commanding officer.
Robbie spat on him, saying, ‘Get up.’ Frank didn’t move. ‘I said, get up.’ Frank slowly rose, and Robbie grabbed him by the shirt, and punched him in the mouth. A bit of blood squirted onto Robbie’s face. ‘Now… what was it you called us earlier? I think you called us something along the lines of pansy. Remember?’ Frank nodded. ‘Good. Now, you can obviously see that upset me. Would you like to apologize?’
‘Go to hell,’ Frank gurgled. Robbie quickly popped him again. Blood leaked out of his mouth, and some of it landed on Robbie’s face again.
‘Sorry, I didn’t understand that because of your busted lip. You should get that looked at. Now, what were you saying?’
‘I’m… I’m sorry,’ Frank tried to say.
‘You’re what?’
‘I’m sorry!’ Frank said with blood in his mouth. Robbie headbutted the man, and let him fall to the ground.
‘Good. What’re you doing on the ground? Get up. We gotta go soon, remember?’
And that poor man did get up and we packed up our things and left without delay. We grabbed our M1s, and loaded up onto the chopper. I made sure to sit next to Robbie, and a while after we took off, I looked towards him and said, ‘Are you fucking crazy?’
He shrugged. That’s all he did. Shrug. I loved Robbie, loved him like a brother, but man, he really knew how to piss me off.
‘Are you just looking to piss people off today?’ He shrugged again. The little shit. I just sat quiet, not wanting to get into a fight right before we went into war.
We exited the chopper two miles south of the 38th Parallel. We hiked towards our troops as backup, to see we were backed up about a mile behind the Parallel. I saw men ducked behind trees and piles of dirt, peeking to fire every now and then, while seeing other men get carted off the field, some with simple bullet wounds, while others were in pieces. I frowned at the sight of the battlefield. I was lucky to have lost only my eye.
I heard a man, he was probably an officer, yell out, “Reinforcements are here! Push forward!” Then I heard a South Korean man yell something out Korean, or whatever the hell they spoke. He was probably saying the same thing.
We immediately ran to some cover as bullets started flying towards us. Jeremy-
“Jeremy Johnson?” I asked.
“Yeah, I was about to say that. Can you shut your trap?”
Jeremy was the first to eat it. He took a bullet right between eyes. I’d like to imagine it was a quick, painless death, but who knows if those actually exist. Another man fell as we ran for cover, but I can’t remember his name to save my life. He was one of those quiet fucks, one who wasn’t very fit for war.
After what seemed hours, we pushed the North Koreans back to the 38th Parallel. We were once again even. Then I heard a yell. “MacArthur’s troops have landed in Inchon! They’re pushing the Koreans back!” We cheered, and pushed on.
As we kept running, fighting, shooting, ducking, hiding, killing, y’know, all that “fun” war stuff, that asshole commander of our’s, Frank, he decided this would be a good time to get back at our poor friend Robbie. While Robbie was taking a breather and deciding which way to go next, Frank took a rock to the back of his head. Robbie went out cold.
I was the only one to see this. I ran and tackled Frank to the hard dirt, and we rolled around, one of us trying to get an upper hand on the other. Eventually, I found myself on top of him, and gave him two good punches to the nose and lips (his lips were still sore) before he pulled onto to my shirt and gave me a fierce headbutt. This made me extremely dizzy. He took this opportunity to put his legs to my chest and kick me back. This prick had some strong legs, Rick. I flew back and landed on a landmine.
It blew up immediately, and before I knew it my right leg was just about everywhere besides the one place it should be. I immediately passed out from the pain.
I awoke with my vision hazy. I was still on the battlefield. I saw Robbie. He was mumbling crazy words; he obviously had a concussion. Other soldiers looked at him like he was crazy. They didn’t see what Frank had done to him. Then, out of nowhere, Robbie started running. He just ran right into the thick of the battle. A spray of blood came from his head before he hit the ground. I fell unconscious once more.
“Robbie’s dead?!” I shouted.
“Yeah, he is.” Billy frowned. “He was a good man.”
A tear fell from my eye. Robbie was my best friend. Damn this coma. If I was there, I could’ve helped him. “This is your fault!” I yelled at Billy.
“How the hell is Robbie’s death my fault?”
“You should’ve stopped him from getting all sassy with that Frank fella! You could’ve held him back, calmed him down! But no! You let him do his thing, and now he’s dead because of you! You’re a coward, you know that?”
“What the hell did you just say, Rick?” He hobbled over to me, a look of sadness in his eyes. “Listen here, brother. I loved him just as much as you did! You got some nerve, ya’ know? Callin’ me a coward!” He was yelling now. “Fuck you, Rick! While you were in here, sleeping your ass off, we were out there, killing others, watching our friends die! Do you know what it was like to watch him get shot? Do you!?”
“No, I don’t. But I-“
“Exactly! You don’t! You were out there for how long, a week?!” He was in my face now. “You don’t know what it was like! You never saw someone die. You never killed someone. You barely saw me take some shrapnel to the eye. You may have been enrolled, but you’re just like all the civilians that stayed here in their cozy homes. You’ll never know what war was like!”
Tears welled up in my eyes. “I’m… I’m sorry, Billy.” But he went on with his rant.
“Everyone here thinks they actually know what war is like. They see movies, and read books, but they don’t actually know! They get fed bullshit. Bullshit saying that war is this glorified thing. Well, guess what, Rick? It ain’t!”
I remained silent. Billy’s face was red, his nostrils were flared, his eyes glistened. What had come over me to say those words? I had no right.
“Y’know what, Rick? I’m just gon’ head out for the day. I’ll see you tomorrow… maybe.” He then stormed out, faster than I’d ever see anyone on crutches walk. A nurse came in after him.
“I heard yelling. Is everything okay?” she asked.
“Yes, everything’s fine,” I replied.
Billy didn’t come to see me the next day, and I never heard the rest of his story. That was actually the last time I saw Billy. I probably deserve to have lost him as a friend, after saying what I said. He was right. I didn’t know, and I will never know.
The End.