Alert Apple #7

“He should never have been there in the first place.” Specialist Jack Jackson – JJ – took another slug from his beer before continuing. “ It was Czinski’s turn to be on point, but he had foot rot and was gimpin’. LT had just sent Arvak up ahead about a half a click to scope for booby traps and some idiot VC triggered the ambush on that one guy instead of waiting for the whole platoon to stumble into the kill sack. By the time we got there, we couldn’t even get some payback, Charlie was long gone.” He grimaced. “Of course, LT reported 2 VC KIA, gotta play the body count game for Westmoreland’s collection. Fuckin’ stupid-ass bureaucratic shit. Jeff dies and we pretend we won.”

“He should never have been there in the first place,” she complained. Jeff’s first letter home from basic training reported that his drill sergeants were abusive, the food awful, and the conditions sweltering. “His draft number was 153. They never took that many before.” Bitterness clouded her friendly and open Midwestern features, the anger of a mother wronged. “It’s those rich kids, with their college deferments. Did you know that the Junker boy got married just so he could dodge a 45? And Freddie Henderson went to Canada – what a disgrace.”

“He should never have been there in the first place.” Mourners snaked past the three caskets at the front of the chapel before congregating in small groups on the sides. Jennifer’s face was ashen as she described how word of the accident had reached the party just as it was really getting out of control. “Jeff was supposed to be in that very car, heading over to the Rockman farm for work, but he skipped out to be with me.” She fought to hold the tears back, lost. “He was just lucky.”

“He should never have been there in the first place,” the nurse whispered darkly. “The Doctor had ordered him isolated, on account of the measles outbreak in the maternity ward. But I don’t have enough isolation rooms for seventeen babies! We tried to keep the numbers per room down, but I still had to have two or three in each. It was just chaos trying to decide which to move where and when.” She paused, arguing with herself whether to admit what had happened. “I went into Iso-C – you know that room is like a broom closet – and saw that two of the identification cards had fallen off of the beds – Jeff Arvak and Matt Czinski. I’m pretty sure I got the right ones back on.” She paused, swallowed hard. “Yes. I’m pretty sure.”