by: MacSas

Shawna Quinn.

Luke smiled as he recalled the young woman he’d known almost a lifetime ago. She had been so young the first time they’d met; yet they both had felt an instant connection. Luke had just joined the Marines and was about to leave for boot camp. He had to make the hard decision of leaving Shawna behind. They’d had just one summer together, yet it was that one summer that had gotten Luke through his toughest test in Vietnam. He had never spoken of his trials over there, yet he knew Shawna would be the one to understand the best. She had gone on to marry Kane Hardy, a fellow Marine Sergeant whom Luke had worked with a few times. Kane had arrived in Vietnam a few weeks after Luke. Shawna had been married a little over a year before Luke heard that Kane had gone missing. What Shawna didn’t know was that Luke had been with Kane on that last disastrous mission. Luke had been the only one to come out of the jungle that day. It had haunted him that Kane had disappeared while working with Luke’s platoon.

Luke had learned more about Kane’s disappearance than anyone else did however. He still had problems coming to terms with it. He hadn’t told anyone, not even Shawna, that he had found Kane in a POW camp during Luke’s second tour of duty. Luke still found it hard to believe that he had been rescued from one disastrous mission, only to be caught by the VC on the next one. This time only his platoon had been on the assignment, and a combination of grenades and well-placed land mines had bought the platoon to its knees. Luke and three others were captured.

Feeling an onslaught of memories nudging the back of his mind, he walked to his room and closed the door. Bo was out with Jesse doing shopping in town. Daisy was working an extra shift at the Boar’s Nest. Luke knew that he would be safe from concerned relatives. He lay on his bed and closed his eyes, finally allowing the memories to take over.

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by: MacSas

Shawna Quinn-Hardy hated moving house. It made her feel like she was uprooting her entire life and relocating it to an alien area. Around her stood boxes that held parts of her life, both as a Marine wife, and as a widow. Each box had a bold mark on it, naming where it should go in her new home. She found it slightly amusing that her entire life could be packed into nothing more than a few cardboard boxes. It made her wonder just what she had done with her time on earth. How would she be remembered? By nothing more than just a few boxes with labels on them?

She had gone from a happy newly wed wife to a woman waiting on her husband to come home. The wait was against the odds, she knew, but what else was a woman to do? It was expected of her. Not just by others but by herself. As a teen bride she had taken her vows seriously, so much so that she hadn’t even dated since her husband, Kane, had disappeared somewhere in Vietnam. The following month would mark the 16^th anniversary of his disappearance.

They had purchased the four-bedroom country home with such high hopes just weeks before their wedding. Of course, the house was too big for her alone. Yet she had shunned the well-meaning advice from friends to sell up and move on. What if Kane made it home some day only to find that home wasn’t his anymore? What would he think if he turned up on the doorstep and found some other family instead of his wife?

And so, for nearly 16 years she had stayed and waited.

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by: MacSas

August 1969 

Darkness surrounded him.

The bush was so dense he couldn’t see even if it were light enough to. There was silence. Not even the sound of those annoying crickets. It was so hot he could feel the sweat dripping down his neck. He moved forward, slowly, quietly. Every muscle tense, ready to spring into action. His eyes darted from left to right, watching for any sign that he’d been spotted.

And there was the smell. Always the smell. Not the smell of the bush or the heat, but the smell of burnt flesh, human decay. He couldn’t look back to where the smell originated. He had to keep his eyes forward. But he knew that what lay behind him was horrific.

His platoon had been accompanying another. They had received ‘sure’ information about a group of Vietnamese in the area who were suspected of harbouring weapons for the Viet Cong. The two platoons had been ordered to seek out the group and destroy the weapons. Just another day at the office. Or so they had thought. They had barely made it to the edge of the village when they were hit by fire from all around. The information had been a plant in order to take out as many soldiers as possible.

He couldn’t quiet the screams in his head. Screams of his friends as they were cut down without mercy. It had been chaotic and noisy, and then there had been silence. The silence had scared him more than the screams. Then there was nothing but the smell. He knew that he had to move or risk being caught alive, a fate worse than death. He had slowly moved backwards to where his platoon had entered the outskirts of the village. As soon as he was sure he hadn’t been spotted, he started walking back to the drop zone, in hopes that the message to their air team had gotten through. If he could make it to the clearing, he may have a chance of being spotted by a Huey.

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