Chapter Two

It was not one event that broke Chris Davis, it was a culmination of events that subconsciously collected in his mind, and eventually he could not deal with all of them. It was having to shoot a boy who pulled out an AK-47 from his house and ran out into the road firing. It was looking at the peaceful expression on his face, as he laid in the middle of the road with blood flowing in stream-lets away from his body. It was the face of a Viet Cong soldier whose only recognizable feature was his detached arm. It was the image of turning to his right, only to see his friend lying on the ground bleeding from a hole in his chest. It was being the lone man to return from a patrol and having no human resemblance. It was the constant Death that slowly eroded through him. Chris Davis’ tolerance was higher than must, but nothing could stop it; it was inevitable.

It was a normal night, nothing unlike the other thirty three months he had spent in this hell hole. He had first watch. He scanned the vast ocean of darkness in front of him. Not looking at objects straight on, but peering at a thirty degree angle to be able to see the tidal pools of the vast ocean. He heard a rustling in the dense jungle in front of him. He peered down the sights of his M 16, and breathed. It was in an identical breath to this that had marked the last moments of so many lives, but this one would mark the end of his own.

It was the last inhale, half exhale, and held breath that Chris Davis would ever do. His thumb moved to the selector switch, placing it to full auto. He blinked his right eye and looked down the iron sight. He moved his rifle, pointing it at the sound in the jungle. When it stopped, he fired. He unloaded one full clip into the jungle in front of him. Thirty rounds out of 10,000 he fired would have a disastrous impact on him. Being almost dawn and with the other brothers waking, Chris sprang out of his foxhole and jogged down to see what loot he could find. The mess he found was horrid. It was a mother water buffalo. The tongue drooped out of its mouth, the eyes were glazed over, and the head was pointed up, perhaps in an effort to grab one more dying breath. The stomach was fully exposed. The legs shot off at the joints, but the baby was still there. Making a crude whining sound, as if to bring its mother back from the dead. This should have had no effect on Chris Davis. He had killed men, children, and certainly other animals. His eyes narrowed in anger, and the rest of the platoon awoke to the spirit crushing screams, and the sound the knife made when it slid into the body. No one knew why, Chris was an excellent soldier. Maybe he had seen enough, he had reached that point. Chris Davis may as well have died that day.

With only three months left, he lost it. Some will say that he was crazy all along, others will say it wall a facade just to go home, and some will say nothing at all, because they know what happened. They know that the mind cannot justify injustices forever. Each mind has a breaking point. Chris could only justify what he did, when he knew it was for good. He could justify his men dying, because he would tell him-self that he would save ten maybe twenty other good men. He could take lives, if it would lead to a strategic victory that would end all the chaos. It was when he could find no justification for what he did that he felt it. His eyes were the same iced over glaciers, and his face always maintained the same scowl, but it did effect him. The mother water buffalo was a wasted life, and for this Chris could find no justification. Or maybe it was the pain of a lost mother that was so familiar to Chris that threw him over the edge? No one will know, but we do know that something in Chris was forever broken.