Flyin High
Weaving through the treetops in the dark didn’t seem nearly as good an idea as it had 30 minutes ago. Sobering up tends to do that to a person.
It all started innocently enough, just a few guys getting together in the hut on a Friday night tossing back some brew and cursing the military. Nothing we hadn’t done dozens of times before since I had been “in country”. One thing led to another, and damned if I didn’t have to open my big mouth again.
“Bill, you suppose we’ll get busted again if we take the chopper up one more time before I get outta this damned place?”
“The hell with all these assholes, damnit! We go out there every damned day getting our asses shot at while they sit in their air conditioned offices smokin shit. Last punk assed officer rode with me is still pickin shraphnel outta his butt. Hahaha, dumb sumbitch thought the extra flack jackets in the seats were too uncomfortable for his candy ass.” Not one to mince words, no, not the Captain who had shared his helicopter and his hooch with me for the past several months. He never did have much use for other officers, especially 2nd Lieutenants still wet behind the ears who arrived fresh from their Mommas back in the states.
It seemed we were kindred spirits from the start. My third day at the unit I met him wandering around the cleared zone around the compound with the rest of us looking for a snake. Some rookie had gotten himself bitten, but never saw the snake, so the medics didn’t know what anti-venom to give him. Sort of reminded me of pulling a water skier behind a boat in the Everglades trolling for alligators, but what did I know. Never did find the snake and it turned out the soldier probably snagged himself on a bamboo stake. A few days of antibiotics and he was back annoying everyone again.