Prizraki

Danny Franklin was the oldest of three siblings. He was not like most older brothers in the fact that he didn't bully or mock his younger relatives, but instead established a form of leadership and authority that would stick with him for the rest of his life...It was the kind of day you would dream about, a cloudless sky covered the rows of identical houses of suburbia. It was hot but not too hot, the kids of the neighborhood were playing a pickup game of football in the streat.

Danny was quarterback, his two younger siblings, Mike and Amy were both wide receivers with other neighborhood kids littered throughout the rest of the positions. Danny´s lifelong friend, Chris was captain of the other team. ¨Alright, we're down by what, seven lets just pull it together before the streetlights come on.¨ Danny said as he pulled the team into a huddle.

¨Hurry up, already.¨ Chris said

¨Just one more minute, stupid let us plan this out,¨ Dannys head disappeared back into the huddle. He then realized didn't actually need more time and broke the huddle.

¨Down...Set...HIKE,¨ Danny screamed into the thick afternoon air. He heard a lot of ¨over hear¨ and ¨just throw it already¨ he scanned the street until he found Jack, one of Mikes friends wide open. Danny chucked the ball into his direction, Jack reached with outstretched arms attempting to catch the ball but at that very moment Chris bolted with no warning toward the direction the ball was headed and embraced it into his chest. ¨Interception!¨ he yelled followed by a devilish chuckle.

Little did the boys know then that at this very moment halfway across the world the first batch of American soldiers were being shipped off to Vietnam and that they would soon join them...nearly three years later Danny was seventeen going on eighteen. The war in Vietnam was still raging and Danny and Chris were certain that they would be drafted. It was the summer of nineteen fifty eight just 5 days from Danny´s eighteenth birthday he sat in the family room, his back arched over the table that stood in the middle of the room. The TV was on but Danny couldn't have been farther from interested. He was dreading the inevitable ring of the doorbell with the postman carrying the mail for that day. Light seeped in the mostly dark room from closed curtains. Eventually the doorbell did ring and before he knew it Danny was searching the moderate stack of mail for his name flipping through with the soft crinkle of the paper was dreadful. Danny reached the end of the stack in disbelief. He had found no military notice whatsoever. Danny was so ecstatic he bolted down the street towards Chris´s house. He wanted to scream or to flail his arms up in the air or something but he didn't. The only disturbance in the perfect suburban street was the soft clapping of Danny´s shoes.

The moment Danny opened the creaking door he immediately knew something was wrong. The usual happy atmosphere of Chris´s residence was replaced with a sad, grieving one he could almost feel. He looked into their well kept kitchen to find all three members of Chris´s family hunched over a table weeping. No one had seen him enter the house so Danny silently closed the door. He crumpled down on the sidewalk, his face in his hands. He didn't know what it was, he should be happy but it was the looming suspense of what was wrong with Chris. Though he could imagine why, he refused to accept it.

It was two days until he got a response from Chris, he was drafted to Vietnam and his dad lost his job. Danny was conflicted, could he live with living his life in a comfortable home with a stable income while his best friend was at war rotting in a trench. ¨I just don't know,¨ he said under his breath as he stared at the floor. The next day was the fourth of July. Danny was in the plaza, he gazed around at the many small shops decorated with festive red white and blue banners and flags. The entire area let off an aura of patriotism. Danny didn't know if it was that which motivated him to the Military Processing Station. The festive atmosphere of the outside world was immediately lost in the drab, sterile environment of the station. The only essence of color was a lone propaganda poster on the wall which read ¨Is this tomorrow? America under communism!¨

¨Are you just gonna stand there or come on up to me,¨ said a scratchy voice. It was then when Danny realized he was completely alone in the station except for an older bald man sitting at the front desk.

As Danny awkwardly strutted up to the desk he saw that the man´s bushy grey eyebrows were his standout feature.

¨um...I would,¨ Danny felt a knot tie itself in his stomach.

¨like to...¨ he was beginning to sweat.

¨enlist.¨

¨all right what's your name, kid.¨

¨Dan, or uh Danny Franklin,¨

¨ Alright, you'll be shipping out the day after tomorrow,¨ Danny started walking out when he remembered.

¨oh by the way, I would like my entire salary to be transferred to Chris Jefferson and his family.¨

¨I can arrange that.¨

The two days went by lightning fast. Danny used the time to say goodbye to friends and family. His entire kin supported him except for his father who wouldn't even talk to him or say goodbye. The drive was silent with his mother. When he finally arrived he said goodbye one last time, and stepped on to the cold cement of the runway. It was about five o'clock in the morning and the only illumination in the dark concrete runway was the flashing red lights of the massive air carrier he was set to board. He was issued a dark green duffel bag and was instructed not to open it until they reached Vietnam. The flight itself was a blur Danny remembered hot air being thrusted on to him and the uncomfortable seats that made his rear end sore.

When the massive door opened Danny was greeted by the blinding light of the sun, the greenery of the jungle, and the thick smell of gasoline. When he stepped onto the second concrete platform that day. He was ushered toward an arched grey building where he was instructed to change into the uniform inside of the duffle bag. It was a dark green jacket and pants complete with pouches and a camo pattern ruined by his exposed white shirt he was wearing underneath. Danny stepped out into the sun again clutching his duffel bag in one hand and his helmet in another. He joined the group of about twelve new recruits standing in attention. A shorter guy with red hair issued him a m14 rifle, a canteen which was neatly attached to his jacket and colt 1911 pistol.

Over the next couple of days Danny and the group of twelve were trained to clean, fire and reload their weapons. It was oddly heartwarming to see a community built in such a dire situation, the only problem was it would not soon last...It was just like any other morning, Danny rose from his bunk bed, the metal frame creaked as he stepped onto the floor. It wasn't comfortable but the base had grown on him, he had memorized the layout of the bunks and the creaking of the mattress frame slowly became familiar. Unlike previous repetition today Danny was sent with a group of three other soldiers to patrol the grounds a half mile away from the base. Danny was at first unfamiliar with the people he was supposed to patrol with. And it took him longer than it should have to recognize one of them.

¨Chris?” He said questionably out into the tropical air, a head turned toward Danny and then lit up. The two of them embraced and then quickly backed away because of the confused faces of the soldiers around them.

¨Wow, I never expected to see you of all people in this mud-hole,¨ said Chris,

¨You'd be surprised.¨

The two of them made small talk catching up on everything as they strutted through the thick, humid jungle. It was completely silent except for the soft crunching of their feet against the ground and the buzz and clicks of various insects around them. All of the sudden the man leading the troop through the jungle raised his left arm in the air. The troop of four came to a halt. Now it was completely silent, even the bugs were not buzzing. Danny felt chills go down his spine, looking for reassurance he stared at the man in the front with his hand up. He was only a year or two older than Danny with brown hair cut short, ironically he had the peace sign engraved on the front of his helmet. With no warning the linear path through the jungle was lit up with automatic gunfire the man in the front was torn to shreds in the crossfire. Danny froze a half a second taking it all in before bolting down back to the camp. He heard bullets whiz by him as he screamed as loud as he could to alert the people at the camp. Danny was never the fastest runner, in fact he was slow and ran out of stamina quickly, but now he ran fast and without concern for how tired he was. He reached the airstrip of the base, the arched buildings were only twenty five yards away. When he reached the arched buildings his feat clamped against the concrete and he quickly ducked behind an ammunition crate, and carefully looked over, he saw two of the soldiers he patrolled with before emerge from the jungle, with a hail of gunfire following them. It was hard to make out but Danny could see that Chris was one of them.

He ducked back down. Danny stared at his m14 clutched with his shaking hands. Combat was a thought that surprisingly had not entered his mind yet. He slowly maneuvered his way up, he tried to expose as little of a target as possible. Only his eyes and gun weren't concealed. He scanned the edge of the thick jungle for anything that even resembled a human. He couldn't find anyone, it was aerie, so much gunfire but with seemingly no one firing it. As Danny ducked once again behind the ammo box he saw the true scale of what was happening. Corpses layed all around him and the ones still alive were blindly shooting into the jungle or trying to assist the wounded. This moment sparked a fire of guilt in Danny, burning his insides. Thoughts began to fill his head, how he should have said goodbye to his father, how he should not have left his siblings behind, would they not have an older brother. Tears began to well up in Danny´s eyes, as much as he tried to hold them back. He had a moment of realization, that if he wanted to live he had to get off the base, but he knew there were soldiers here that could use his aid. Danny was once again conflicted.

But he had no time to think, at that very moment Vietcong soldiers burst through the brush welding Ak-47s and firing them off at what remained of the base. Danny knew it was now or never so he stood up, took careful aim and shot at the lead Vietcong soldier, he missed. All of the sudden Danny felt a jolt of searing pain right above his left leg. The pain knocked him down and it took him longer than it should have to realize that he had been shot. In a last-ditch effort he crawled belly up to some foliage, just on the edge between the base and the jungle. He fell into a natural trench with a log just over it, the trench was about four feet deep. Danny laid there for a long time before working up the courage to look at his bullet wound, he was horrified to find charred flesh, his entire waist was soaked in blood. He remembered to apply pressure to the wound by ripping the end of his sleeve off and tying it around the entry point. Danny could still hear rapid gunfire in the distance, he pulled out a tattered piece of paper about six inches wide and long, and started writing. He used up both sides, Danny wrote to his mother, father, siblings, and chris. When he was finally out of space he noticed that the gunfire had thinned, which meant the Vietcong now had full control over the base and were searching for survivors this instant.

The sad reality was, Danny was not fit to move anywhere at the moment. So, (after realizing he dropped his M14 when he was shot) Danny drew his 1911 and made the crude attempt of crawling through the jungle, praying that he would stumble upon someone who could help. Pain grew, and after about half an hour it was too painful to crawl. So Danny positioned himself against a tree, gun drawn. It didn't take long for night to fall. But Danny could not and would not sleep. Morning rose once again, the pain in his waist was worse than it was the night before and he was dehydrated and hungry. Danny realized he couldn't last much longer up against that tree. So after contemplating it for about half an hour, Danny went with the hail-mary option. He started shooting his gun in the air and screaming at the top of his lungs for help.

About five minutes later Danny heard rustling in the jungle around him. His stomach was in knots, the 1911 still clutched in his shaking hand. There was even more rustling, and Chris emerged from the brush.

¨What do you think your doing,¨ Chris said

¨Here take this,¨ Danny handed Chris the note.

¨And run as fast as you can,¨

¨No I can´t,¨

¨There isn't much time, please,¨ a long pause followed.

¨Ok,¨ Chris clutched the note firmly in his hand. And took off tears welling up in his eyes.