Prizraki

Prizraki

The calm Before the Storm

By: Colin K

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, with a cloudless sky covering the rows of identical houses of suburbia. It was hot but not too hot, and the kids of the neighborhood were playing a pickup game of football in the street.

Danny was quarterback, and 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? Let’s 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." Danny’s 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 voices saying, "over here" and "just throw it already". He scanned the street until he found Jack, one of Mike’s 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 without warning in 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 that at that 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 1958, just five 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 into the mostly dark room from the 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 toward Chris’s house. He wanted to scream or flail his arms up in the air, 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 left and closed the door. He crumpled down on the sidewalk, his face in his hands. He didn't know what it was - he should have been happy, but then there was the looming suspense of what was wrong with Chris. Though he could imagine what it was, he refused to accept it.

It was two days until he received a response from Chris: he had been drafted to Vietnam and his dad lost his job. Danny was feeling conflicted - could he live with spending 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 gave off an aura of patriotism. Danny didn't know if that was what 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 are you going to come 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 standing out 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 talk to him or even say goodbye. The drive with his mother was silent. 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 on 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 instructed not to open it until they reached Vietnam. The flight itself was a blur. Danny remembered hot air being thrusted onto him and 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 gray building where he was instructed to change into the uniform that was inside of the duffle bag. It was a dark green jacket and pants complete with pouches and a camo pattern ruined by the 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 to attention. A shorter man with red hair issued him a M14 rifle, a canteen which was neatly attached to his jacket, and a 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 being it would not soon last…

It was just like any other morning. Danny rose from his bunk bed, the metal frame creaking 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 questioned 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, and 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 a 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 for 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 had never been 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, with the arched buildings only twenty-five yards away. When he reached the arched buildings his feet clamped against the concrete and he quickly ducked behind an ammunition crate. Danny carefully looked over; he saw two of the soldiers he had patrolled with before emerge from the jungle, with a hail of gunfire following them. It was hard to make them out but Danny could see that Chris was one of them.

He ducked back down. Danny stared at his M14 clutched in his shaking hands. Combat was a thought that, surprisingly, had not entered his mind yet. He slowly maneuvered his way up, trying to make himself as little of a target as possible. Only his eyes and gun were exposed. He scanned the edge of the thick jungle for anything that resembled a human, but he couldn't find anyone. It was eerie - so much gunfire but 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 people still alive were blindly shooting into the jungle or trying to assist the wounded - while he was just hiding. This sight 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. Suddenly, he had a moment of realization: if he wanted to live, he had to get off the base - but he knew there were soldiers there that could use his aid. Danny was once again conflicted.

But he had no time to think, because at that very moment, Vietcong soldiers burst through the brush wielding their russian-made assault rifles 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 a 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 to get away, he crawled belly up to some foliage that was on the edge of the base and the jungle. He fell into a natural trench with a log just covering 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 and 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.

He 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. Using up both sides, Danny wrote to his mother, father, siblings, and to Chris. When he was finally out of space, he noticed that the gunfire had thinned - which most likely meant the Vietcong now had full control over the base and were searching for survivors that instant.

The sad reality was, Danny was not fit to move anywhere at the moment. So, he searched for his M14, but couldn’t find it. He must have left it at the base when he had been shot. Instead, Danny drew his 1911 and made a crude attempt at crawling through the jungle, praying that he would stumble upon someone who could help. His 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, with the pain in his waist worse than the night before and he was dehydrated and hungry. Danny realized he couldn't last much longer up against the 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. The rustling got louder, and suddenly Chris emerged from the brush.

"What do you think you’re doing?" Chris said.

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

"And run as fast as you can," Danny added.

"No, I can’t.”

"There isn't much time - please." A long pause followed.

"Okay." Chris clutched the note firmly in his hand and took off, tears welling up in his eyes…To this day no one knows what ever became of Danny Franklin, yet his legacy lives on in his family and community. In April of 1969 an empty casket was buried in Macmillam park near the Franklin residence.