Glen rolled over and began to choke violently, haphazardly hacking the river water out of his lungs. After jumping into the river to survive the air strike, he had barely survived the strong current and rapids, and now he had to come to his senses.

He would have surely drowned had his body not been caught up on a large tree that had fallen over in a calm part of the river. Once he ran into the tree, he had managed to shimmy his way over to the bank and escape the potential watery grave.

With the water now out of his lungs and drying up in the soil on the riverbank, he crawled up into the jungle, but immediately became disoriented. Glen’s eyes slowly went into the back of his head, and he rolled over onto his back. Sprawled across the ground on top of some tree roots, Glen passed out.

“So, you don’t remember anything until the next day?”

Lt. Colonel Simms’ eyes furrowed as he looked over at Glen while teaching into his shirt pocket. The US Army intelligence officer pulled out another cigar and lit it up, carefully sucking the flame against the tip of the rolled tobacco.

The smoked drifted over to Glen who cleared his throat, “Yes, sir. To the best of my recollection, I passed out around 1800 hours and awoke the next morning at 800 hours.”

Lt. Colonel Simms conferred his papers and replied, “By that time you were reported as MIA, but obviously we’ll fix that, so your parents aren’t notified of a Missing in Action report.”

“Thank you, sir.”

It was Glen’s only reply before he continued on his recollection of what exactly did happen during the days he was gone.

It was early the next morning and Glen awoke slowly. First his mind came back into coherence and then his ears cleared up and he could hear the sounds of the jungle around. A bird sung in the distance, and perhaps a monkey howling in the background. Finally, Glen’s eyes opened, and he managed to see clearly within a few determined blinks.

Raising his head, he peered down his body and watched as a small snake slithered its way up his chest towards his head. Glen brought his hand up and grabbed it behind the head with his index finger and thumb. With a flick of the wrist, it was ten feet away.

His clothes had mostly dried but his side arm holster was empty and he couldn’t find his rifle anywhere near him. Figuring that he had lost them in the river, he quickly realized he was defenseless against any soldiers he encountered.

With a slight grunt, Glen forced himself to get to his feet, and weakened from the entire day before, he found himself standing with a hand braced against the tree. The calming, trickling sound of water nearby caught Glen’s attention and he slightly limped his way to the to the river.

Looking down at the fallen tree he had caught on to escape the current, his eyes widened when he found a Vietnamese soldier hung up on it.

The soldier’s body was horribly burnt and mutilated. Glen could barely make out the soldier’s allegiance besides the rags that held his crisped corpse together. Glen simply turned and keeled over, vomiting out anything else that remained within his stomach.

Glen wiped his mouth and looked back at the dead enemy soldier and noticed something attached to his arm.

It was a gun strap.

Glen barely thought twice about it before making his way down the bank to the body. Balancing on the fallen tree, he hovered and grabbed the rifle from the dead Vietnamese soldier’s arm. But as he tried to pull the strap down his enemy’s arm, it only tore more cringed flesh with it.

Realizing he was being careful without reason, he simply gave one hard tug, consequently ripping off the Vietnamese soldier’s arm from the elbow down.

Glen dry-heaved in the middle of his balancing act.

He couldn’t believe what he had just seen, but at least he now had a gun though he didn’t know if it would even fire. Contemplating on taking a practice shot, he realized that it would only give away his position, so he slung the strap over his own shoulder and decided to head out in search of his base.

Glen dismounted the fallen tree, and then he freed the soldier’s body to let it drift down the stream slowly. He was unsure why exactly he did it. He didn’t know if it was so that no one else would find the body and be horribly disgusted by it, or if he didn’t want the enemy to find a fallen soldier freshly mutilated.

Either way, it didn’t really matter now.

Glen’s life was balancing between life and death. Obviously, the US Army would not be coming out looking for him and he knew that his way back to the base was going to be a literal and figurative minefield of Charlie.

He was only one man with a rifle that may or may not work, so he knew things were not looking up. Nevertheless, Glen rolled up the sleeves to his shirt and began his way back to his base.

Glen had one thing going in his favor, however. He knew by the position of the valleys surrounding, that he was only six or seven miles from his base.

He could do it, if he was careful, and a little lucky.

Delicacy and stealth were a must.

Dauntlessness was a must.

Speed was a must.

As Glen slowly crept through the jungle’s deep soul of animals and plants, he felt eyes on him. He knew someone was always watching and paranoia would become his companion.

Eventually time passed, and while his steps stayed the same slow pace, he fell into a deep state of concentration. His rippled arms always held the rifle up, ready for ambush, and his eyes were always glancing through the trees which surrounded him. Anything that looked perhaps shady, he double checked, then triple checked.

Assurance was never enough in Vietnam. When his life could be ended by a single bullet, he could never be too sure.

Finally, the day was wearing down and although Glen did not feel the hunger, it was there. The sky grew dark and daring not to walk at night, Glen set up a position to sleep in.

Though it took nearly an hour, he had dug himself a hole deep enough for him to crouch in and throw several tree branches over. With his rifle barely sticking out, he had rigged himself a small foxhole, just enough to shroud himself from a patrol.

He tried not to sleep, because if someone snuck up on him it would be too late, and he couldn’t defend himself. But the lack of food and water began to tear into him, and his body pulled himself further into a tired state.

Not very long later, Glen was asleep, crouching in a hole with a gun in his hands.