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into
his chest. With each struggling breath he heard a high‐pitched whistling followed
by a gurgling sound. He realized that it was dark because his eyes were closed
and, with great difficulty, he opened them. He looked up into a hazy, purplish
sky, heavy with dust. A shadow passed over him and he heard the familiar thump,
thump of a UH-60 Blackhawk as the fast helicopter passed overhead. A darker
shadow enveloped him and someone bent over his face. He tried to force his eyes
to focus on the features of the man looking down on him, but couldn’t.
    “Hang in
there, Sergeant. You’re gonna be ok!”
    “How is he,
Doc?”
    “I don’t know.
He’s lost a shitload of blood. The left side of his neck is swollen tight. I
think he might have gotten his carotid artery.” There was a pause and more
light as the featureless face disappeared from view. “We got to get him the
fuck out of here, Mac, or he ain’t gonna make it. He needs to be in an OR,
like, five mikes ago.”
    Doc. That
would be Doc White, the young Navy corpsman from New Orleans, now with his
platoon. They must have joined up with the rest of the guys. And Mac? Who was
Mac? …Wait, Mac! That was McIver from Virginia—wanted to be a high‐school
baseball coach.
    “What is that
in his neck? Shrapnel?”
    “It’s a
tracheotomy, dipshit. I had to put it in so he could breathe. The bullet tore
his windpipe nearly in half. He was drowning in his own blood.”
    There was
movement around him and then another shadow, another featureless face. Casey
felt desperately short of breath. He struggled to suck air into his lungs, and
the burning grew to an unbearable pitch. He tried to raise an arm, to reach out
for Mac, but his arms were dead weight by his sides. He felt a panic grow
inside of him and struggled to stay calm.
    Why the fuck
can’t I move?
    Casey forced
his mind away from his burning pain, from the feeling that tight bands were
wrapped around his chest, keeping him from getting air into his oxygen-starved
body. He forced his mind to Pam, to thoughts of her body moving against his. He
thought of Claire, lying peaceful on his bare chest, rocking in the glider
beside her crib. His big girl. With all his might he willed himself away from
the nightmare he was living and back home to them, to a place where he could
breathe. A place where he wasn’t so terrified. A place where he didn’t need to
be afraid of death.
    He sensed more
movement beside him and he blinked his eyes to clear them. He managed to turn
his head ever so slightly to the left, pain now exploding in his neck to join
the burning in his chest, and he forced his eyes to focus on the dark shape
beside him in the dirt. Slowly the image sharpened, like someone fine-tuned a
pair of binoculars—back and forth, back and forth—and then he focused on the
horror only a foot or so from his face.
    He opened his
mouth to scream, but of course no sound came, just that horrible whistling and
bubbling. Then something warm and sticky poured out from the center of his
neck. He felt the blood trickle down both sides of his neck and drip off into
the dirt.
    Beside him in
the filthy street, he saw the face of Rich Simmons, the young kid from Albany.
Only it wasn’t really him. Not anymore. The one remaining eye looked off at an
unnatural angle, unfocused, staring out at oblivion. The other eye was gone, as
was half of his face and most of the top of his head. The short strands of
blondish hair stuck to what was left of his forehead, matted with grey mush,
and bits of bone. Casey wanted to turn his head away, but couldn’t. Instead he
squeezed his eyes shut and, in his mind, screamed again.
     
    *   *   *
     
    He sat up in
bed, tears streaming down his face, gasped for air, and then screamed. His
hands clawed desperately at his neck, but found nothing but sweat and smooth
skin. Above him, a hazy purple sky was cut periodically with tracers and orange
light from distant explosions. The light wind swirled dust