A New Friend

I was in bed, if you could call it that. It was as much of a bed as I had had for the last few months. I had finally overcome my shyness and had gotten used to sleeping naked out in open, lying on top of my blankets during those hot Vietnamese nights. It was really hot in our hooch that night. I was there in the dark, pretty much as everyone else, trying to get cool enough to sleep. I had my fan on but it wasn't helping much.

As I lay there, I heard them coming, the faint thump telling me they were landing far away. They were incoming rounds in the form of mortar shells launched from outside our perimeter. I picked up my head to listen for the next one. Usually, "Charlie" would "walk" the mortar rounds into our small airstrip. He was seeking to wreak havoc with our barracks, Hueys, POLs, hangers and mess halls, trying to kill and destroy as much as possible before being located by our ever vigilent gunships.

I listened a few moments more and then allowed my head to drop back down on the pillow. "Don't have to worry yet", I thought to myself. I had become pretty used to the sounds of incoming mortar rounds and rockets since arriving in Vietnam months before.

"WHUMP!!"

I was out of my cot, running for the door and the bunker as I heard dirt, stones and metal land on the tin roof of our hooch. It was pitch black in the hooch and all I could see was the faint glow of the door as I ran, thinking, "Where is everyone?"

I jumped out the doorway and skidded to the left on my bare feet as I headed toward the bunker. It was positioned between our hooch and the one next to ours. It had been built by some of the our unit's door gunners. Finding the bunker wasn't a problem because the sky was lit up by the flares being dropped by our choppers circling overhead. They were already looking for the source of the mortar attack. The real problem was getting to the bunker in time before the next round landed.

"WHUMP!!" This time louder, closer! Different!

Before I knew what was happening I was lying naked on my face in the dirt, my arms outstretched with a shower of dirt and debris falling onto my body. The ground had been shaken with such force that my feet had gone out from under me. I had landed so hard that I was really shaken up. I was trying shake the fog from my head and get back onto my feet but nothing seemed to be working right. Panicing, all I was managing to do was thrash and scratch at the dirt with my hands and feet in my effort to get those last few remaining feet to the opening of that lifesaving bunker.

Suddenly, I felt someone grab my hand  and started to drag me through the dirt and into the dark safety of the bunker. I felt his strong arms and hands as he grabbed me bodily and pulled me through the small opening of the bunker. He set me over to relative safety away from the entrance. Just then the last explosion of the night landed a few feet from where I had just been groveling and scratching in the filthy dirt, thinking my last hopeless thoughts. The light from the explosion lit the interior of the bunker showing a multitude of sweaty young faces, eyes wide. Then immediately it went pitch black again.

"Damn, that was close.", the boy in the dark whispered in my ear, his arms still wrapped around me.

I sat there trembling, listening to the sounds in the bunker. Someone was groaning. Someone else in the dark asked, "Anyone hurt?"

Another voice said, "Just Morgan, He might want to duck his head the next time he dives in here in the dark. He hit his head on the main overhead beam" .

The boy that had pulled me in, whispered again in my ear, "You okay?"

"Yeah, I guess. I thought I was done for. I would have been if not for you". "You saved my life. Thanks.

A minute or two later I said, "Man it's dark in here, who are you anyway? What's your name?"

"I'm Adon.  I'm one of the door gunners".

It would turn out to be a name I would never forget.

I said, "Thanks, Adon the door gunner. My friends call me Mouse."

"I know". I felt him smile. A moment later he again whispered in my ear, "You might want to grab some pants next time though, Mouse."

"I didn't have time", I said, smiling to my self in the dark.

 And at that very moment, I didn't really care.