That was what I chose to write for this semester's first English test. And here is what my mind churned out - a little ol' Natalie propaganda.
Johnnie Get Your Nape
Some guy - Morrison was his name I think – this guy, he sets himself on fire right in front of the Pentagon in ‘65. A protest against the Vietnam War; a symbol of the killings and burnings of innocent Vietnamese. But here’s the thing. This guy douses himself in what, gasoline? Napalm, the stuff we used in
Now, at the same time this Morrison guy was burning himself, I was busy dragging myself and my companion – that is, my M16A1 assault rifle – through that god-forsaken jungle. I hated that jungle, and it hated me back. The dense growth, the watery fog that hung 24/7, the mosquitoes that swarmed around us, violently buzzing, “Get out, leave!” It was all there to the damn advantage of the Viet Congs. When we had to cross rivers, leeches stuck to whatever exposed skin touched the murky water. Rainbows of snakes hung in the trees, eyes following closely, teeth ready to sink into anything that got too close. The sound of birds flapping their wings made you cringe, it sounded like artillery. You shivered as you crouched in the mud, listening for the VCs that you knew were waiting to kill you from their endless hiding spots.
I enjoyed burning down that jungle. Places where the planes couldn’t get to, they sent us to burn using handheld flamethrowers. You let them rip and the flames exploded from them, bright and orange. They ate at everything. Trees, vines, bamboo – the sound of the animals panicking sounded like the laments of the damned, like hell had opened up. The smell of napalm and burned forest was something that I looked forward to.
Besides the jungle, we sometimes had to burn villages too. You saw old papa-sans and mama-sans, chink-eyed women and kids in these villages. Never any young men. Not a soldier in sight. But we burned the villages, just the same. We had to incapacitate the army any way we could think of. We wanted to leave them without cover, without food, without homes. We wanted the napalm and the rainbow agents to leave them with nothing, except the promise of a swift death.
Human screams are different from animal screams. With human screams you can hear the blame. That blame, it follows you. At night in my dreams, I heard the cries of, “It’s hot! It’s hot!” Thời tiết nóng! Thời tiết nóng!. Their faces, mouths open in terror and pain and eyes shut, morphed into my face burned down to the tissue, or at times to the bone.
To stop the dreams I started doing some of the shit they had around. When I wasn’t seeing any action, I smoked weed. It relaxed me, gave me a calm that you can only get by numbing the brain. Weed is one hell of a pain killer. First of all, it kills any physical pain you have; second, it deadens your brain, so while you still remember everything you’ve done, you’re so disassociated – it’s so far away from you, another world really – that it makes no difference one way or another. Later heroin became available. Heroin had the same effect as weed except multiplied, everything went slower, more calm, relaxed - but heroin was much better than weed. With weed you were never completely free from your self-hate, but heroin...heroin made you someone new. And heroin had the added bonus of the rush before the calm. That sense of riding high, of being above it all. The rush was the feeling of letting down your chains, your stress and your pain being lifted, the feeling of casting off your uniform and not being a soldier anymore. The rush was feeling that you weren’t a murderer anymore.
Then - after you’ve burned down all the jungles and all the rice patties. After you’ve smoked weed and you snort heroin and chase the dragon. After you burn down the villages in order to save them. After you’re done being a murderer in the name of justice, liberty, peace and democracy. After all that they send you back. Tell you you’re home. There, some people tell you that it has not been for liberty, or for justice. No one has found peace. They tell you everyone knows what you’ve done and no one approves. They tell you about Morrison and what he did. But you never get any punishment. They never make you pay for any crime. The dreams come back and they’re worse, and there’s nothing – no weed and no heroin and no nape to make it all go away. The place that they told you was home feels like being in that god-forsaken jungle again. Paranoid, shivering, you feel the eyes of hidden enemies watching you. Desperation creeps over you and you wish for the cool weight of a rifle in your hands. Always, always in the back of your mind you hear the wails of people being burned to death. The blame covers you and sticks no matter how you try to get it off. And it burns you to the bones.
