Part Four:
"Can you tell me, why I still can't get to sleep?" I asked, my frail voice coming out as sad and tired as I felt.
"Sir, you went through a terrible ordeal. You lost many men, even this many years can't change how horrific that was." The doctor looked at me with pity.
"I still see them. All my fallen brothers. The things I saw, the screams I heard, they haunt me." I placed my head in my hands.
"I'll change your pills, okay? Try taking these before bed, it should help you sleep." He placed a pill bottle beside me.
"You said that about the last four lots of drugs, doc." I sighed.
"We will find something to help." He pat my frail arm, where my Army tattoo lay, faded on my withered, wrinkled skin.
"The news chopper, the journalists banging down my door, I can't handle it, doc. So many years have passed and I still can't." I shook my head.
The doctor told me more things, things I have heard ever since I got back from Vietnam. Things that never helped.
I sacrificed my life, my sanity, for my country. My mates gave their lives, others have to spend the rest of their lives in rehabilitation clinics.
I looked back on those days and squeezed my eyes closed, hearing the deafening explosions, the screams, the gunfire.
God help me, I was only nineteen.
Lest we forget.
YOU ARE READING
Remember The ANZAC's
Short StoryThe story of a soldier in the Australian Army, based off of the song 'I was only 19.' This idea came about because of a bookclub contest, so while I haven't entered this in, I wanted to share it anyway.
