Conquering the Power of Death

by Foster, David Lee

• ISBN13: 9781468558760
• ISBN10: 1468558765
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-03-23
• Publisher: Authorhouse

Excerpts

The whine of the helicopter blades became louder in the background as the NVA advanced under a hail of automatic weapons fire, small arms, and rocket propelled grenades. Bone-rack could clearly see their faces now as he barked out corrections to ANGLICO. The ordinance found its mark but many NVA were still between the falling rounds and their perimeter. Pig man's M-60 furiously took the enemy down but there were just too many. Bone-rack watched in horror as they swarmed over the concertina wire and made their way to the sandbags and to Pig man and Team Eagle. "Check your fire, check your fire" Bone-rack called out into the mike. "Danger close, drop 100 and fire for effect" Bone-rack said, "We have zips in the wire! Fire now, I say again, fire now!" He knew he was bringing the fire down on top of them all. It was no use, and Bone-rack went instinctively for his grenade launcher; he would either save or die with Pig man and Team Eagle. Bone-rack watched everything unfold in slow motion. He thought back to his childhood, he saw his friends, his family, and he remembered his Catholic school upbringing. From somewhere in his memory he recalled the Sunday school teaching from Easter Season, the Resurrection of Christ, and the power of the words that to lay down one's life for fellow human beings was the greatest of love; it was, in fact, conquering the power of death. By showing love for his fellow Marines to the extent of dying for them, he was defeating the author of death itself: the devil. He was no longer nineteen or naive. ********* "How could this happen?" "It's the 'Nam man" said Pig man, "it happens." Sarge thought about the young Marine; he should not have left him alone, even in the rear. Pig man glared at the young Marine's bunk and realized he did not even know his full name, only that he was from somewhere in New York. Bone-rack stared at the floor, momentarily "happy" now he had "wasted" so many enemy that day and then profoundly sad that death was winning this war, on all sides. Angry, sad, incensed and then apprehensive, Bone-rack just wanted to go home: Home to where he had never voted, home to where he had only had a legal drink in his native state of New York but not elsewhere in states where the drinking age was 21, and home to where he had not even gotten laid. "God", he thought, "what kind of hell was this? And who wants to win hearts and minds?" Bone-rack neither understood nor cared why they were in Vietnam, nor did he see any purpose in being there other than protecting his fellow Marines or perhaps saving a pilot. Why did they fight in the south when the enemy was in the north? Somewhere deep in his Catholic upbringing though Bone-rack permitted the notion that this was a just war, it had to be or he was surely going to a hell worse than he was in. The Marine in Bone-rack wanted to rip out the heart and put a round through the mind of the enemy, but just who was the enemy? Then, upon reflection, he thought "Who am I to decide who the enemy is?" He also remembered that he volunteered for this, feeling it was his duty- duty, just war, hearts and minds, things that were confusing. What was crystal clear to Bone-rack was that another Marine was dead and it was not as a result of the front lines, the enemy, yes – but not on the front lines. "Hell" Bone-rack thought, "There were no lines, no rules, and no boundaries, there was only the absence of reason." It did not seem sufficient to justify the loss of a good Marine.