Dear Marv,
I’m writing
from Cabanatuan City, which is in the Philippines. We were told there were a
lot of women here, but the only ones with vaginas are strapped to nearly
retired officers and their lap dog Humvee drivers. There’s a nice little
bizarre at the end of the block where homemade bows and arrows, boiled duckling
eggs, massages, and all you can drink brandy can be found. The Filipino SF unit
has a band, and though they can hardly speak English, they sing the shit out of
some American rock songs… a girl that sells me Pepsi every day does a wonderful
cover of Zombie by the Cranberries.
To see the
sunrises, you have to walk up one of the hills surrounding the town. It’s only
a few mile hike, but the trek back in at night makes it very dangerous to see
the sunsets. I miss the Oklahoman sunsets—remember when we shot whiskey until
4:32 am, laughing about the Iraqi boy I hired to paint the battalion offices so
we wouldn’t have to do it? First sergeant got fucking pissed when he saw us at
the M.W.R playing ping pong!
I
think he was more pissed when he had to come pick us up at the mildewed motel
of some secret town… cheap trick hookers thinking they’d be the bait we’d try
to bite that night.
That
was the best sunset of my life. A sunset is like a lightning flash, it’s so
beautiful and powerful; but it’s so short and abrupt and leaves us wanting to
reminisce the flash of life… the flash…
I can’t
help but remember feeling your body on me when I saw the flash.
Dust. Ringing in my ears.
The smell of
burning pennies filling my nose.
The oxblood
crimson red on your grayed and dusty uniform.
You shaking and crying because you were trying not to cry.
“Josh” you
whimpered.
“I always
hated you the most.” You died smiling at me.
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