A/N: I wrote this to kind of go hand-in-hand with “Fragments,” which was written on impulse regarding Soda’s initial experience with the Vietnam War. This, however, shows you a similar side of the war, told in Steve’s point of view. It includes a bit of S.E. Hinton’s original plan for him following The Outsiders, but I chose not to include any post-war experiences at this point.

The title of this I thought was a bit oxymoronic, especially with regards to the emotions and fears felt by any infantryman in Vietnam.

Disclaimer: Still no ownage for Sarah. : (

Soldier in Paradise

I wanted to kill the bastards. I wanted to kill them more than I’d ever wanted to kill anything in my life, because they were killing me from the inside out, and a handful of my comrades from the outside in.

They ate away at us slowly, physically, mentally, and most of the time, without even realizing they were doing anything at all. Oh, sure – they could watch in triumphant silence as one of us got our legs blown off at the mercy of a Bouncing Betty – they could see that, plain as day – but our minds were invisible to them. The stupid fuckers didn’t care either way. Our mental well-being meant nothing to them, just as theirs meant equally as little to us.

This was the underlying reason behind my hatred for them. The blood, the gore, the death – yeah, it had the desired effect, but it didn’t bother me nearly as much as the gradual eating away of the psyche. No doubt – Vietnam fucked you up. You got in-country, you were fucked for life, man. No getting out, no running away. That was it.

I didn’t understand the chaos. I didn’t want to be a part of it because, to be real honest, it scared me. It scared the hell out of me. That kinda stuff makes you do crazy things. Asinine things. How’d the old saying go? Desperate times call for desperate measures?

Wasn’t long before I started to feel that way myself, and the stuff they gave me in Saigon made me feel like a million bucks, and then some. It was instantaneous and strong, just like morphine. They had a name for it: smack. That was slang, of course; everyone else knew it more generically as heroin, but that made it almost sound bad, and back then, when you needed that way out, that release you couldn’t get on patrol in the field, it wasn’t bad at all.

It was weird at first, taking that stuff, because it was so new to me, but after a while it was just commonplace and regular. And damn, was it good. The rush was incredible – the out-of-body feeling you got when you were high up there in the clouds was nothing you could ever try to explain in a million years.

I hated the sameness afterwards, though. The feeling that the world hadn’t changed, the war hadn’t ended. Only the mind had been altered. The sensation that everything was A-okay only lasted as long as the rush. And then things were normal again – as normal as they could get in the middle of a war.

Nights in Vietnam were the worst. It was like being dead. And nothing could save you from the reality that you might die. Mortar round could land right in your foxhole, right on top of you. Or you could trip the claymore that had been so expertly and secretively turned to face you by Victor Charlie himself, when it was supposed to be facing him in the first place. You’d wonder how he got into the perimeter, which would then lead you into thoughts of your own death.

Malaria, dysentery, shrapnel wound, gunshot wound – God, the possibilities were endless. That fucked me over, too, just thinking about all that. Sent you hurtling down into hellish nightmares that kept you from precious sleep, which was hard to come by anyway.

But I had an escape. I took advantage of it when things got the roughest out there, when I began to feel as if I may go insane myself, just like all the others who shot themselves on purpose just to get the hell out of that place. I didn’t lower myself to that because I wasn’t a coward, but I could get away from it, if only for a little while.

It was easier to do it back at base camp when you knew you weren’t in grave danger, when the likelihood of becoming another casualty of war was less than it was out in the field. Made you feel relatively safe and secure. Mortar round could still land on top of you, sure, but it seemed silly to think about.

“Times like these, man, is when I miss bein’ back home,” my buddy Hastings would say to me. I’d sit around in our bunker for a long time with him, the rush coming on strong. “You dig, man?”

“Yeah, brother,” I’d reply slowly. “It don’t have to be that way, though.”

“We got a way out of this shit-hole, don’t we?”

I’d nod and feel the bitter albeit comforting vibration in my veins, the cool and quick rushing of my blood. “Affirmative,” I’d tell him. “We always got a way out.”

And then the drug would take over, and we’d willingly let it run its course. No objections.

But soon it became like an addiction, just something else you couldn’t escape, and at times you were sure you needed it – couldn’t live without it – even when you were absolutely capable of doing just fine. You thought you could be strong during firefights, thought you could keep it together when the blood started to spill, but that in itself became a battle. You were fighting your own demons, your own enemies, and all kinds of ghosts, because of something you thought would make it all go away.

You were fighting an addiction. An addiction to war, in a sense, and at the same time, an addiction to peace. All as a result of this one thing, this one thing you were so sure would balance it all out.

Hastings got his throat shot to pieces because of it. He was high on patrol, paying no attention whatsoever, and stepped right smack into enemy fire. I started to lose it then, started to see what the stuff did to you if you weren’t careful. I tried to stop, tried to set it aside and forget about it, but for a long time it was impossible.

I didn’t want to die out of carelessness, but at the same time I didn’t want the euphoric sensation of paradise to go away. I thought that was the only thing keeping me alive, keeping me sane. And my veins burned with the intense need for it, but I had to ignore it. There was no way I was getting out of here alive if I didn’t.

Thinking about it, it seemed stupid to say that. I wasn’t getting out alive at all. Physically, I could, sure. But the rest of me would die here. The rest of me would become a part of the country, and a part of the war.

No amount of heroin, I realized, would ever be able to get that part of me back.

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A/N: If this is too fast-paced or rushed, cut me some slack - it's four in the morning, and this is what happens to me in the wee hours. I write, and I write a lot. Also, for the record, I have never done drugs, am not doing drugs at the present, and will not do drugs in the future. Just figured I'd clarify that for those who choose to make assumptions based on the context of this story.

I also suggest reading “Fragments” if you haven't already.

Review? I will be happy. :)