Dancing Girl

Today we came across a village that had been burned to the ground by the cross fire of us and the North Vietnamese. The village was still burning and this girl was dancing in the middle of the square, she must have been the only living being around. She looked to be 14 her feet were bare and she had her hands covering her ears as if she was trying to block out the noise of the guns and fire. Her family was in one of the huts they were dead all of them and this young girls was dancing in the middle of the the village. We had to search the other huts and whatever else that was remaining and add to the fire. Later that night Azar and the men were mocking this girls dancing which brought chortles from the us myself included when Azar started dancing as well in mockery of the girl when Henry Dobbins and large man started dancing with him, doing twists and turns and leaps: when he asked Azar if he wanted to be dropped in the water well. He (Azar) said no and they quit dancing and we marched on to another village. Everyday its the same we march to some distant place firing, pillaging and taking night watches over and over again. There is talk about how the was will be over soon and we all can go home, but the thing is not all of us will be going home some of us will going home in pieces and in coffins in a sense that is not really all of us going home again. There is a lot of talk about home and what we will do when we get home. I have no idea what I will do when I get home, my father is at home waiting for me to come home again to share war stories to and compare stories to see which one of us had the best ones. Is this what waits for me?, telling war stories, sitting in a bar telling stories recalling what things we did in Nam.