This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

Many days have gone by, and as each sun sets i wonder even more why I'm still here. I frequently find myself unable to sleep, and i end up staring up at the moon with my eyes wide open. I can't help but think about how less than a year ago, I was looking at the same moon, only not wondering if it were to be the last time i would see it. Every morning when the sun rises, all i can think about is the moon. I cross my fingers and hope to god that i make it through the day so i can spend another night staring at my beloved moon. I feel every day i am succumbed to more fear, fear to an extent that almost weighs me down. It becomes more difficult to breathe as we creep up behind Charlie so deviously, and a sigh of relief tends to escape my breath when we are not. 

I am terrified. The days are getting longer and I am starting to grow weary. I am to the point where I can no longer stare at my beloved moon, because everything i have ever feared happens all at once under the light of that moon. When i was younger, my father had always told me to fear nothing, that working towards a brighter outcome I can overcome anything. When I first arrived here in Vietnam, I couldn't help but think about what my father had told me. Now, I have come up against my worst fears, and fears that I never had known I had.

 

I feel a miniscule sense of security out here in this treacherous jungle, we are the underdogs. We are unfamiliar with the territory, we are weakened by the gloomy fog and the thick elephant grass. Charlie has the home-field advantage, and we know it. 

I have, on numerous occasions, found myself trigger happy with my M-16 rifle, shooting away at the mere thought that this is my only chance of living. This is my security. I rarely ever see Charlie, mainly because I am scared out of my wits. I have one strategy during combat, and that is to repeat to myself exactly what i learned back at Pendleton Base Camp:

"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.  My rifle is my best friend, it is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle without me is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will..."

The worst part of 'Nam is the jungle. I have never felt more fear flow through my body and tear away at every nerve of bravery I ever had, until I took a patrol through the jungles of Vietnam. They are thick, vast forests that penalize you for a slight blink. 

 I have never had to stay more alert and on my toes more than in the jungle. I hold my weapon close to me as I pass every tree, because every tree I pass is a different risk by itself. The worst part about the jungle is that behind the next tree I pass could be a VC waiting there specifically to kill me. He doesn't know my name, he doesn't know anything about me. The only thing he knows is that I am looking for him, and he is looking for me. I cannot let fear control me, because the man who controls his fear the most is the man who pulls the trigger faster, and survives. The hardest part about your biggest fears is that you cannot let them scare you. Not here. Not in Vietnam. 

I am struggling to hold myself up, as everyone around me is dying. I feel it is harder for me to be confident 

that I will see home again when there is death and destruction all around me. I feel it. I can sense the destruction. I smell it, I hear it, I see it. Seeing a man you have known very well for a little under a year as one of your best friends get his head blown off by 

an enemy rifle is one of the most frightening images one can hold in his head. It is hard for anybody here to restrain themselves from losing their minds. One can only imagine what you see here in Vietnam, on a rare occasion can anyone remain sane throughout the experience. Its difficult for anyone to view such atrocity and still be able to hold their own out here. In the midst of all of the deaths, I lay quiet in the grass between two of my own fellow dead comrades of my platoon, as I continue to count backwards from 365 until the day I can go home. But for now, i must lay in the dead of the Vietnamese night, staring at my beloved moon, repeating to myself, "This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend, it is my life. I must master it as I must master my life."