I can’t remember if I was carrying you or you were carrying me. I do remember the mud sucking at our soles, every step was an effort, every step was in time with each other, and not a one was in balance. Between us, we had two good eyes, frazzled nerves and a single thought. I had never heard my gear rattle so much. The fire fight had shaken everything loose, everything except your hold on me ... and now we were on the run. We slipped, we fell, we tripped over vines we had just tripped over. Bullets were cracking in the air around us, I might have heard them if my ears weren’t already ringing.

Charlie was behind us, the tree line in front of us, and beyond that the LZ . Small thoughts float in and out at times like these. Every once in awhile I’ve been able to catch them as they happen, as if to hold them in my hand, examine them, and then watch them fall to the ground in one eternal second ...