If I Die in a Combat Zone

10 The Man at the Well (#litres_trial_promo)

11 Assault (#litres_trial_promo)

12 Mori (#litres_trial_promo)

13 My Lai in May (#litres_trial_promo)

14 Step Lightly (#litres_trial_promo)

15 Centurion (#litres_trial_promo)

16 Wise Endurance (#litres_trial_promo)

17 July (#litres_trial_promo)

18 The Lagoon (#litres_trial_promo)

19 Dulce et Decorum (#litres_trial_promo)

20 Another War (#litres_trial_promo)

21 Hearts and Minds (#litres_trial_promo)

22 Courage Is a Certain Kind of Preserving (#litres_trial_promo)

23 Don’t I Know You? (#litres_trial_promo)

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P.S. Ideas, Interviews & Features … (#litres_trial_promo)

About the author (#litres_trial_promo)

Relying on Memory and Imagination: Tim O’Brien talks to Travis Elborough

About the book (#litres_trial_promo)

What the Papers Said

Box Me Up and Send Me Home: A Timeline (#litres_trial_promo)

Read on (#litres_trial_promo)

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Epigraph (#ulink_c6ac164d-8658-5c90-99be-f16f54b2d009)

lo maggior don che Dio per sua

larghezza/fesse creando …/

… fu de la volontà la libertate

THE DIVINE COMEDY

Par. V, 19 ff.

1 Days (#ulink_1c19eede-8379-586d-aa2f-30fad9e685ae)

‘It’s incredible, it really is, isn’t it? Ever think you’d be humping along some crazy-ass trail like this one, jumping up and down out of the dirt, jumping like a goddamn bullfrog, dodging bullets all day? Don’t know about you, but I sure as hell never thought I’d ever be going on all day like this. Back in Cleveland I’d still be asleep.’ Barney smiled. ‘Jesus, you ever see anything like this?’

‘Yesterday,’ I said.

‘Yesterday? Shit, yesterday wasn’t nothing like this.’

‘Snipers yesterday, snipers today. What’s the difference?’

‘Guess so,’ he said. ‘They’ll put holes in your ass either way, right? But shit, yesterday wasn’t nothing like this.’

‘Snipers yesterday, snipers today,’ I said again.

Barney laughed. ‘You don’t like snipers, do you? Yesterday there were snipers, a few of them, but Jesus, today that’s all there is. Can’t wait ’til tonight. My God, tonight will be lovely. They’ll really give us hell. I’m digging me a foxhole like a basement.’

We lay next to each other until the volley of bullets stopped. We didn’t bother to raise our rifles. We didn’t know which way to shoot, and it was all over anyway.

Barney picked up his helmet and took out a pencil and put a mark on it. ‘See,’ he said, grinning and showing me ten marks, ‘that’s ten times today. Count them – one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, TEN! Ever been shot at ten times in one day?’

‘Yesterday,’ I said. ‘And the day before that and the day before that.’

‘Oh, it’s been worse today.’

‘Did you count yesterday?’

‘No. Didn’t think of it until today. That proves today’s worse.’

‘Well, you should have counted yesterday.’

‘Jesus,’ Barney said. ‘Get off your ass, let’s get going. Company’s moving out.’ Barney put his pencil away and jumped up like a jumping jack, a little kid on a pogo stick, then he pulled me by the hand.