“Yeah, I spent eighteen months in Nam.”

“What did you do there,” I asked.

“I killed people.”

I didn’t know what to say, I had never heard anybody admit to killing people before. But Rich was not just anybody, he was different; always quiet and reserved, he always kept to himself even when the bar was crowded and noisy. He was also a writer, he wrote travelogues for popular magazines.

“I had this captain,” he said, chuckling to himself, “he was real gung-ho. He told us to go into this village and to kill everybody, every man, woman, and child.”

I didn’t stir, I wanted to hear this. I glanced at him, his eyes were gone in memory, so I waited.

“Yeah, he told us that, and I said, what the hell for? And he said, so I don’t blow your fucking head off. And I said, so if they don’t kill us, you will, right? And he said, you got it, soldier.”

The bar was empty, it was late, the bartender was outside with her boyfriend. It was just Rich and me and I was listening.

“So we went in there and we killed everybody and I thought, man, I’m just a slave to this bastard here, it’s kill or be killed, and that ain’t right.

“So I said to him next morning, I ain’t doing that again, it ain’t right. And he says, how about if I blow your brains out right now, boy? And he pulls his forty-five and cocks it and he points it at my forehead. What do you say, boy? And all the guys are watching, you know, and I say, okay, and he puts his gun away.

“We go on all day and we don’t find anybody and we sack out that night on a levee, all spread out up and down on this thing between the rice paddies. We ain’t got anything like a perimeter, you know, just guys watching at each end. So when it comes time for me to watch, I stroll down the line and I find the captain where he’s sleeping, and I cut his throat.”