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My mood began to turn into something dark and brooding, something as black as the evening sky that surrounded me. I began a long letter to Jan Kihlken, an ex-girlfriend, back in Ohio. She was teaching fourth graders and had asked me to write to them. I filled a page or two with idle chit chat regarding the Buckeye's forthcoming Rose Bowl game. Then something snapped inside me. I decided it was time for 9 year olds to get the straight skinny about war.
"Learn the truth now before you go off to college, join ROTC, and end up being a PIO officer in Bumfuck, Egypt or Lai Khe, Vietnam!" My pen sped across the paper, anger and cynicism foaming up in a hostile brew.
About this time Gibbon "up chucked" all over PFC Clark's drafting table. Never the most stable member of our jolly crew, Clark flung his drafting glasses across the tent, “Gibbon, you son of bitch!” he screamed, his face turning crimson. He shook his fist at his tormentor, “Get your ass down here!”
Gibbon stared at Clark for a long second and then relieved himself, the urine falling on the edge of Clark’s desk and the floor. Clark John Wayned the table and stormed out into the night, not even bothering to grab his poncho.
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