365 Days Read Online Free PDF

seen him?” Cooper fumed.
    “No, but I don’t remember anything in the Army regulations that states a physician has to get an opinion from another physician before admitting a patient to his service, do you? Of course, I could be wrong...”
    Five days later, tests completed, Kurt went home. Peterson took him to Yokota. It was a dark, wet Japanese night. The heavy air hung like a dirty blanket over the plains. They parked their car across from the runway and walked into the terminal, past the unloading gates. There were two med evac C-141’s on the runway, unloading their wounded. A thin, cotton-wool mist hung over the field. In the dim, hazy light, you could barely make out the figures moving across the runway. Overhead, unseen, more C-141’s were circling.
    One of the patients still out on the runway groaned. Kurt turned anxiously toward Peterson.
    “For Christ’s sake,” Peterson said wearily, “go home, Kurt, will you just go home.”

“They’re tough. In the Delta we killed
    NVA who had walked six months just to
    get there, and every day of that trip they
    had to take gunships, air strikes, and
    B-52 raids. Every day, man, every
    fucken day.”
    Trooper, 9th Division, Riverine Force
    Burn Unit
    U.S. Army Hospital, Kishine, Japan

2
Mayfield

M AYFIELD LAY IN THE water, listening. He was tired. Not exhausted, just tired out. A single round cracked out from the tree line, but nobody bothered to fire back. Closing his eyes, he tried to relax.
    “They’re coming, Sarge.”
    “I know,” he said wearily. A few moments later, the gunships swept in over the shore line.
    “OK, Otsun. Get ’em ready, we’re going home.”
    They waited, looking over their sights, while the gunships chewed up the tree line. Then, moving out, they began the long walk back to the boats. Mayfield waited until all his men were moving, and giving the smoking tree line one last look, he shouldered his weapon and followed his troopers. Someone else could count the bodies; today he was just too tired, and he wasn’t about to lose any more men. The last gunship, cutting playfully low over the paddies, rose suddenly just as it passed over them in some kind of adolescent salute. Shaking his head, Mayfield watched it go.
    An hour later they reached the shore and he stopped on a slight rise overlooking the bay. All around, the paddies in crazy checkerboard patterns of green and brown ran right down to the edge of the river. His men, spread out in front of him, were moving slowly through the mud and water, walking cautiously, like hunters moving through a corn field. He didn’t know half of them. A first sergeant, and he couldn’t keep up with the replacements. Five times in the last week he’d had to bend over the wounded and ask their names. Two had been hit in the head and had lost their tags; nobody even knew who they were, not even the troopers who carried them in. He couldn’t keep a second lieutenant; they ran through his fingers like the mud they worked in. He’d lost three that month alone, one right after the other. Finally he’d had to take over the 1st Platoon himself while Clay, the company Commander, took over the 3rd; that way, at least they’d be on opposite sides of a fire fight; if one got hit, the other might be able to hold the unit together. And they were getting hit. Whereas before they’d been running into VC squads, they were running into platoons now and NVA cadre. It was getting tougher all the time.
    The tango boats were waiting, motors running, their gun crews nervously looking over their 50’s, watching the water line. Thirty meters offshore a hydrofoil, twisted and broken, lay on its side. The troopers, without even bothering to look at it, climbed into the boats. A few, still standing in the water, were already lighting up some grass. Nearby, a Navy helmet was sloshing back and forth in the shallow water. Mayfield, waiting for everyone to get in, stared at it.
    “Everybody pays,” he thought. “There