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Title: N is for No-Man's Land
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ultranos
Rating/Warning: PG
Summary: They say war is hell.
Notes: for the Hammond Alphabet Soup tribute.
Special thanks toshanghairain for the insanely fast and useful beta.
It's raining again. The rain never stops in this part of the world, and when the sun comes out, it turns this God-forsaken jungle into a sauna. A sauna full of rotting leaves, mud, and bugs large enough to be bullets. The only difference is the bugs kill slower, with disease and fever that just dries a person out and sucks out the will to live until there's nothing left.
Yeah, this place is hell on earth, Lt. George Hammond muses as he watches raindrops splatter against the concrete. He's sitting under the wing of his F-4C, just watching the skies open up. The other flyboys probably think he's insane, sitting as they are inside the base. The weather is bad enough indoors, but at least it's dry.
But there's some undeniable rightness to sitting out here, huddling under the wing of his plane, a canopy of metal, while other Americans do the same under canopies of leaves. The Air Force doesn't deal with the muck and the mud. That's the job of the grunts and jarheads. The few times George has crossed paths with Army men or Marines, they've seen the insignia on his lapels and narrowed their eyes. Some held back sneers, others didn't. You're up there, safe in your little cockpit, while we're down in the dirt and mud, fighting phantoms that just dissolve back into the bush when they're done killing us, their looks scream at him. And while there's nothing easy or safe about being in a little box thousands of miles up in the air dodging bullets from a MiG, George keeps his mouth shut when he gets those looks, and never joins in when other Air Force men rag on the ground troops.
Because it's a war out there, and between screaming through the sky with an MiG on your tail, or breathing mud in a foxhole hiding from snipers, everything in this hellish land is trying to kill you. It's a thankless job, one people back home, safe in their houses, living their lives, don't know the full details of, don't know how much is sacrificed here. There are acts committed that no tales will speak of, no history books will record. Small things, big things, things that will remain unknown until some scholar years later starts digging.
And until then, the lines between the branches of the military should be blurred. They're all there fighting for a reason, and none of them can do it on their own, no matter how the brass postures. If only the brass understood that. That underneath the uniforms and insignia, Air Force or Army or Marines or Navy, that every soldier here just wants to do their job, keep their families safe, and be able to come home.
Maybe some day, George thinks, there'll be a general who understands.
Author:
ultranosRating/Warning: PG
Summary: They say war is hell.
Notes: for the Hammond Alphabet Soup tribute.
Special thanks to
shanghairain for the insanely fast and useful beta.It's raining again. The rain never stops in this part of the world, and when the sun comes out, it turns this God-forsaken jungle into a sauna. A sauna full of rotting leaves, mud, and bugs large enough to be bullets. The only difference is the bugs kill slower, with disease and fever that just dries a person out and sucks out the will to live until there's nothing left.
Yeah, this place is hell on earth, Lt. George Hammond muses as he watches raindrops splatter against the concrete. He's sitting under the wing of his F-4C, just watching the skies open up. The other flyboys probably think he's insane, sitting as they are inside the base. The weather is bad enough indoors, but at least it's dry.
But there's some undeniable rightness to sitting out here, huddling under the wing of his plane, a canopy of metal, while other Americans do the same under canopies of leaves. The Air Force doesn't deal with the muck and the mud. That's the job of the grunts and jarheads. The few times George has crossed paths with Army men or Marines, they've seen the insignia on his lapels and narrowed their eyes. Some held back sneers, others didn't. You're up there, safe in your little cockpit, while we're down in the dirt and mud, fighting phantoms that just dissolve back into the bush when they're done killing us, their looks scream at him. And while there's nothing easy or safe about being in a little box thousands of miles up in the air dodging bullets from a MiG, George keeps his mouth shut when he gets those looks, and never joins in when other Air Force men rag on the ground troops.
Because it's a war out there, and between screaming through the sky with an MiG on your tail, or breathing mud in a foxhole hiding from snipers, everything in this hellish land is trying to kill you. It's a thankless job, one people back home, safe in their houses, living their lives, don't know the full details of, don't know how much is sacrificed here. There are acts committed that no tales will speak of, no history books will record. Small things, big things, things that will remain unknown until some scholar years later starts digging.
And until then, the lines between the branches of the military should be blurred. They're all there fighting for a reason, and none of them can do it on their own, no matter how the brass postures. If only the brass understood that. That underneath the uniforms and insignia, Air Force or Army or Marines or Navy, that every soldier here just wants to do their job, keep their families safe, and be able to come home.
Maybe some day, George thinks, there'll be a general who understands.
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I kept remembering particular book I read years ago about the Vietnam War: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brian. It's a haunting book, and it's never really left me.