A True Patriot

The year was 1963.  It had been six grueling months since the man had first landed in the tropical lands of Vietnam.  Beads of sweat dripped off his helmet, as the hot humid air clung to his skin.  The soft buzzing of mosquitoes fainted in the distance as the man continued his walk.  The trees of the jungle stood eerily still, the leaves making no movement from the lack of wind.  The ridged sun was shaded by the dense canopy of trees above him, yet the air was thick and muggy.  Each breath was becoming harder.  The man’s legs began to ache from his three mile hike back to camp.  He had just been on a reconnaissance mission, and could not wait to get back to a safe zone in camp.  It had been a whole week of hiding in ditches, trying to avoid the enemy.  His mind pondered the thought of quitting.  The thought that he was too insignificant and his efforts were pointless.  He was tired of seeing death.  Death from friends, death from family, and death from those he did not know.  His heart ached for the forgotten, for the men who died fighting, doing the same thing he was doing.  Then the man thought quickly of his father.  His father was a man of great honor and pride.  He had a great sense of joy and pride in his country, so much that he risked his life for it and others.  The man thought of his last days on this once bright but now much dimmer planet.  He thought of the loneliness that the man must have felt as he took his last breath.  But more importantly he thought of how insignificant he was when his father died.  He was just a small boy, not able to help save his father.  He had never felt so helpless than when he thought of his father.  Yet his father sparked something deep inside.  The thought of being able to help those in desperate need was why the man had come to this wretched country.  As the man was closing in on the camp, he could see its black gates awaiting his homecoming.  He thought of friends there, and his letters from home.  He could not be any happier than to see those enticing gates.  He began to smile, then he heard the gunfire.  The sound sent immediate chills down his back, as he ducked and rolled behind a tree.  Taking his firearm in his hand, he quickly checked the area looking for his attackers.  An explosion shook the ground, as fire and smoke caressed away into the sky.  Plants began burning, tears crept into the man’s eyes from the toxic smoke.  He turned his head quickly to see if any of his men that were on the mission were still with him.  He saw one soldier ducking under a pale green plant, hiding from the madness.  He shifted his head to the right only to be met with sadness.  One of his friends lay just thirty feet away from him, with a bullet in the shoulder and chest.  He was gripping his letters from the states trying to read them one last time.  The man was about to get up to finally help somebody, but gunfire scattered the jungle.  About 200 feet away another explosion ripped through the jungle.  The man sat there waiting for the right time.  Then he looked toward camp, hoping help would be on its way.  All he saw were its steel black gates.  Half a mile more he thought, and he would have been safe with his troops.  He tried to get up to help his friend, and was met with bullet in his shin.  He let out a scream of hopeless pain.  He tried to get up, but his leg could not bear the wait.  He could hear his friend panting with excruciating pain, yet he could not help him.  He heard his cries for help, and his cries for life, yet there was nobody who could give him what he wanted.  He began calling the man’s name in a desperate tone, begging for help from anybody.  The man’s eyes began to blur with tears as he could not answer.  The spree of gunfire suddenly stopped.  There the two friends sat, both in vigorous pain.  Silence was met with sorrowful screams, as the two’s cries echoed throughout the lonely jungle