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| Apprehension |
As he sat on the three-legged, half-rotten chair, the noise around him reverberated. It was totally unbearable. The area was full of bombings, fires of rifles and the shouts of other soldiers. The US soldiers fought bravely. Facing death directly, they slashed wildly with their bayonets wildly at the enemies at close range. Their battered knees almost buckled under the strain of the tough war. Every few seconds, he would see a comrade shot to death, his eyes horrifyingly wide open. Some of the injured ones were lucky and managed to crawl back to the hut. Upon reaching safety, they lay on their back and gasped loudly with exhaustion while doctors and nurses rushed out to attend to them. He watched the whole process with fascinated horror. The injuries were too gruesome, too gut-wrenching for him to handle. His apprehension on whether the Americans would win this war grew.
Clutching his baton, he suddenly realized he was defenseless to the armed men all around the place, except for the "Hòa bình" sign on the roof of the medical hut which meant peace to the Vietnamese. He was assured that as long as the sign was there, they would never possibly attack it. He glanced at his right shoulder. It was healing, which was injured by a bullet, although he still winced in pain every now and then. He longed to go out there, go out to defeat the Vietnamese. But he was too frightened, the bombings and the massacring of innocent lives. He was too religious to ever commit such a wicked sin. He did not want the burden to crash down on him when he was facing God. Besides, he still had his life to worry about and whether he would still be enjoying the sweet air in his lungs after sunset. He cowered into a corner, just as the sirens wailed, refusing to join in.
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