Fortunate Son

[VindicatedPurpose]

Warning: Contains Suggestive Themes/Strong Language

This is, I guess, a little excerpt. I just got some inspiration one morning as I woke up and I decided to write this little piece. Also, I think it would be nice if you listened to this. I hope you guys enjoy this and the music. Comments are always welcome. Thanks and enjoy.

---

Sometimes I wondered what we were meant for. I mean, what were we here for? This hell that we’ve been sent to, we weren’t expecting it. We were expecting barbecues. Pot. The Beatles by swaying palm trees. And beautiful girls. I mean, that’s what we were promised, that’s what we expected. But that wasn’t the case. I often asked myself, what kind of hell did I get into? Whose fault was this? Was it the recruiters? Did they know about it? I guess they were just doing their job. And that job was sending twenty year old boys to jungles halfway across the world from their homes to wave the flag and die.

Was it worth it?

I didn’t know. The only thing I knew, is that I just wanted to go home.

I thought long and hard during those days when the heat whipped against my neck like mosquitoes as the real mosquitoes bit me. I thought about what I would do the day I got back while in my rain poncho as the monsoons poured. I thought about how I would run for president and end this war as I waded through the waist-deep rice paddies. I thought about how I would punch a mall recruiter in the face and maybe a bit more if I ever passed him as I sat on a gunboat cruising down a river. I thought about how I would march on D.C. with the hippies, taking LSD, having sex with anyone and everyone. I thought about this as I sat at the edge of a Huey’s cabin door with my feet dangling just over the landing skids as we flew by fields and fields of trees and grass.

But the truth is I wouldn’t have done anything about it when I got back. I just wanted to go home to some familiar arms, into the arms of somebody that I knew, somebody that knew me and the kind of hell I was going through. But somewhere inside me I knew, I knew that would be a goddamned miracle.

I guess I didn’t care anymore. I don’t think I ever cared. I guess that’s what happens here.

Was anything worth it? I really didn’t know. I don’t think anybody knew. Maybe the President. Maybe the Chiefs of Staff. Maybe the generals had a vague notion about what we were doing here. Westmoreland? Abrams? McNamara? Maybe they knew.

But I didn’t know. The only thing I knew, is that I just wanted to go home.

~Private Frank Durden, 1967

[VindicatedPurpose]

Choppers dropped us off in a field about 20 km from base. Brass ordered us to do some recon and engage if necessary. It wasn't too long before we reached a little hamlet. One of those really small ones that don't have any names on maps. Now that I think about it, I don’t even know how to pronounce the names of the bigger ones.

Had my trusty rifle with me. People kept sayin' how bad it was usin' it, sayin' that it would jam and shit. Hadn't done that to me yet. 'Course I don't have a relationship with it like some people. Polanski’s one of them. He calls his carbine Patricia. I guess that's to remind him of his girl.

He never talks about any girl named Patricia back home.

I don’t think I’ll ever figure out how people pronounce the names of these places.

We got there and it was just women and children. Did I ever say their girls were pretty? They are just a bit.

But in a different way from our girls.

They got a certain beauty.

I wasn’t thinkin' much about them, just the heavy sack on my back. Rations, canteens, made sure I had my grenades, my ammo.

Once we were near those huts, I don’t know, maybe twenty or thirty feet from the village, Hibbert took one to the temple.

The guy just fuckin’

He just fuckin’ fell.

Sarge said fire. And that’s what we did.

Opened up hell on ‘em. Did they deserve it? We’ll let the historians


She was just seventeen, I think

Gonzales got hit in the chest. He's gonna live though, but the doc said he’d never walk again. I’ll probably be seein' him on a chopper outta camp, and maybe back to the states, if Hueys could ever fly that far.

We burned the straw huts down and left for camp. Truth is I wanted to burn the whole damn jungle down. The mosquitoes are fuckin’ killing me.

When we walked back I saw this one old man, he had mud, maybe dirt, maybe shit on his face. His eyes were black, the kind of black that you get lost in if you stare into it too long.

It got cold later, and some rain followed.

In the past month we visited that place five times. I hope today was gonna be the last. ~ Corporal Nicholas “Nick” Acevedo