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The grenade bounced and rolled across the trail... the young man dropped his weapon and began to run, just two or three quick steps, then hesitated, swiveling to his right, and he glanced down at the grenade and tried to cover his head but never did.
The grenade made a popping noise...and there was a puff of dust and smoke-a small white puff-and the young man seemed to jerk upward as if pulled by invisible wires.
The brush was thick and I had to lob it high, not aiming, and I remember the grenade seeming to freeze above me for an instant...
I had already pulled the pin on the grenade. I had come to a crouch. It was entirely automatic. I did not hate the young man; I did not see him as the enemy...The grenade was to make him go away-just evaporate...
...then looking up and seeing the young man come out of the fog. He wore black clothing and rubber sandals and a gray ammunition belt...He seemed at ease..He carried his weapon in one hand, muzzle down...
Kiowa tried to tell me that the man would've died anyway. He told me that it was a good kill, that I was a soldier and this was war, that I should shape up and stop staring and ask myself what the dead man would've done if things were reversed...All I could do was gape at the fact of the young man's body.
Shortly After midnight we moved into the ambush site outside of My Khe. The hole platoon was there, spread out in the dense brush along the trail, and for five hours nothing happened.
I did what seemed right, which was to say, "Of course not," and then to take her onto my lap and hold her for a while. Someday, I hope, she'll ask again.
...Maybe half an hour I kneeled there and waited. Very gradually, in tiny slivers, dawn began to break through the fog, and from my position in the brush I could see ten or fifteen meters up the trail.
We were working in two man teams-one man on guard while the other slept, switching off every two hours.
...I remember it was still dark when Kiowa shook me awake for the final watch. The night was foggy and hot...found three grenades and lined them up in front of me.
He was a short, slender young man of about twenty. I was afraid of him-afraid of somethings-and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him.
Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don't. In the ordinary hours of life I tray not to dwell on it, but now and then, when I'm reading a newspaper or just sitting alone in a room, I'll look up and see the young man step out of the morning fog.
"You keep writing these war stories," she said, "so I guess you must've killed somebody."
Bibliography:
Bloom, Harold. Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2005. Print.
Nathan Krause
P2 English
5/15/14