Magnet & Steele (23 page)

20th Day Captured

I think it’s the 20th day, I think.
I think I might have missed it by one or two days, but I think its
day twenty. I miss my home. I miss America, I miss everything. I
want to go home. Are they coming for us?

25th Day Captured

Pvt. Hawkins cries every night now.
He’s younger than me, maybe around eighteen, he looks like a baby,
and his beard hasn’t even grown in yet. I feel sorry for him and
his sorrow is beating me down. I hate to hear him weeping at night,
but I have to stay strong. I have to stay healthy, the guys are
coming…my squad is coming for us.

38 Days Captured

I’ve gotta stay strong now. I’ve
gotta stay healthy. I think it’s the 25th day now. I think. God, I
miss my dad. I want to give him a big ole hug. I miss Francine, I
want to touch her again, God I love her so much! I miss her so much
and just thinking about her makes my heart swell up and now I’ve
just made my own nose run. My eyes are swelling with tears just
thinking about her. I miss her…Oh God.

50 Days Captured

I don’t know what day it is, I don’t
know what time it is and I think I’m losing my mind. No, I’m
definitely losing it. I’m starving now – so hungry, I’d eat
anything. I’ve gotta get outta here! Pvt. Hawkins has already lost
it – he’s adopted a coach roach as a pet. He’s been playing with it
and watching it hobble away, and when it’s just about at the gates,
he corrals it back in and hold its within his clenched fist to make
sure it doesn’t get away next time.

68 Days Captured:

When the sun came up, Pvt. Hawkins
began yelling at the VC soldiers guarding us. Yelling and crying,
he wanted to go home. We all want to go home. Pvt. Hawkins hasn’t
played with his pet lately, I think he might have eaten
him.

102 Days Captured:

They fed us today. I’ve been
counting the times they feed us according to the days I see the sun
come up. I’ve been making marks into the dirt to count the times
when I see the sun. So according to my markings on the ground, the
VC give us rice and vegetables and sometimes some kind of meat
every three days. We got meat today…at least I think its meat. I
don’t know what kind of meat it was, or if it was meat. Oh hell, I
really don’t care what it was, it was chewy and it filled my
stomach for now. Today, they chained our feet together and marched
us out of the bamboo cell that we named “Dogpatch” and transported
us to another location. They blind-folded us and placed us in a
transport.

120 Days Captured

Me, Pvt’s Hawkins, Jansen, Williams
and O’Hara have been placed in a 10x10 metal box. We stretch our
legs out when we can, but most of the time, we feel like a bunch of
sardines. It’s a death trap built for five. It feels almost like
those gooks put us in here to prepare us for some kind of death. I
can smell it all around us. Men are crying, the men are
crying…

133 Days Captured

What day is it? Oh God, help me,
please, please help me! The VC took Pvt. Jansen last night. Pulled
him from his sleep, I’m not even sure they chose him for anything
other than his legs was the closest to the door. We don’t know
where they took him. We can’t see anything other than a small
square of blue sky. When we try to stick our heads out of the 1x1
opening, there is always a VC guard to conk us on our heads if we
try to look out.

177 Days Captured

I don’t know how many days I’ve been
in here! No ambush yet, no one is coming for us, I can feel it now
and I’m coming to face the terms that I could be here forever. They
sent back Pvt. Jansen with one of his eyes missing and his right
hand crushed. I know I’m next, I just know I am and I’m scared now.
I’m no longer hungry; the fear is much too strong.

216 Days Captured

Rain. Rain everywhere. The water has
been creeping in from under the doorway and now all of us have
sores on our feet from being in the water day and night. Mud has
also seeped in from under the opening and now all of us eat, sleep
and sit in mud and dirty water.

238 Days Captured

I miss my dad. I miss Francine. I
miss my little boy…I want to go home!

288 Days Captured

They moved us again. I think the
weather is changing because now we’re back outside again. Thank God
because Pvt. Hawkins is dead. He fell asleep one sundown and never
woke up. He was lying next to me and now I can’t get his stiffness
outta my mind! I’m losing it; I’ve lost it, Oh God, help me! I want
to die too!

366 Days Captured

I don’t know what day it is, and
I’ve lost count at how many times I’ve watched the sun beat down on
my body. I just wanna get outta here! Why aren’t they coming for
us? Don’t they know we’re here! Oh God, help me! Oh God, help
me…

Derrie has been placed inside
another bamboo cell. He’s beyond filthy with apparent abuse
surrounding his face and limbs. Wearing ripped fatigues, shoeless
and starving, he still held onto a plan. With six other men, Derrie
has lost all hope, until…

Derrie captured a moment when he
felt a glimpse of optimism. Motioning for the other soldiers to
stay quiet, the guards weren’t looking their way; they were trying
to load an U.S. assault rifle M-16A1 and were having problems doing
so when Derrie noticed the gate wasn’t tied up with rope. It was
loose and slightly ajar and Derrie tested the opening. He could
open it?

Derrie gave the signal “on five” to
the others and motioned a silent count to make a run for it. The
same count a quarterback would make inside a football huddle. Five,
four, three, two, one! Derrie then swung open the door and darted
out and made a mad dash for his very life towards the trees. Three
soldiers behind him managed to escape alongside with him while the
three others were chopped down by gun fire.

Derrie and the three soldiers
continued their way unnoticed through the untamed jungle, each one
of them helped each other make their way up the top of the mountain
summit when one of the soldiers’ buckled under his feet. Derrie
stopped first to help his comrade, while the others continued to
run. But then the ascending soldiers turned back to see Derrie
trying to pull up his friend and they all come back to his aid and
picked up the ailing man and dragged him away on his feet. Derrie
loomed over at the horizon and beyond the jungle he saw a river. He
stood up straight to view more of the terrain and helicopters
suddenly fly over him.

Without warning, a bomb exploded;
it’s a huge explosion and the three soldiers that escaped with him
are instantly dead.

Derrie was alive however, but
wounded. He’s on the ground with limbs in awkward positions,
unconscious.

California, 2003

Hurriedly walking down the white
hospital linoleum, Francine tried to rush towards the delivery room
where her daughter Sara just had another baby, this time a
girl.

She reached the elevator and waited
for it to approach her floor and thought about her mom for a
second; after Angelo retired, he sold their home and he and her
mother moved to Italy ten years back and she lost touch with them,
but Francine knew in her heart that her mother was
happy.

The elevator door slowly opened up
and Francine walked in. Moments later in the delivery room, her
daughter Sara handed her mother the baby. Francine cradled it
within her arms and eyed her hair. It was strawberry
blonde!

“Mom, we want to name her Suzette,”
Sara asked, gazing up at her mother still holding the
baby.

On the verge of tears, Francine
looked down at her daughter. “Oh Sara honey, thank you…”

“Oh mom, isn’t she just the
prettiest little baby you’ve ever seen? And I’m not just saying
that because she’s mine.”

“Oh honey, she is indeed unique, and
look at all that strawberry blonde hair!”

Just then a nurse came in with a
baby cart and interrupted the two cooing at the infant.

“Just procedure, ma’am,” the nurse
relayed, opening up the blanket on the cart, “The baby needs to be
assessed.”

Francine walked over to the cart and
placed her granddaughter gently into the rolling
bassinet.

The nurse then rolled the baby out
of the room, but then stopped short causing Francine and Sara to
look her way.

“What’s wrong?” Francine asked,
concerned.

“Oh, don’t mean to alarm you, but
did you get a chance to finish the application for the birth
certificate?”

Francine bent over to grab the piece
of paper by her daughter’s head and handed it to the nurse. “Here
it is anything else?”

“No ma’am.”

Francine watched the nurse wheel out
her granddaughter before she turned to Sara and asked, “How ya
feeling?”

Sara gazed up at her mom, “Besides
feeling numb from where they cut me and sewed me up, I’m feeling
terrific!”

After visiting hours were over,
Francine decided to take a detour on her way out of the hospital
and ended up back at the nursery. It was crowded that day; a lot of
babies had been born. Many families were still there waiting by the
viewing windows which made Francine have to wait her
turn.

Waiting in the distance until a
small crowd finished viewing the infants; Francine began to survey
an assortment of families. A young couple was surrounded by two
older couples, four sets of grandparents and two single
dads.

Amused by their joyous actions,
Francine laughed along with them as they continued to try to get
the newborns attention by tapping on the glass. Her smile however,
dropped when they all begin to leave. On their way out, she noticed
that one of the visitors used a wheelchair to get around and she
watched them drudge away, and then disappear around the
corner.

Her turn now and Francine walked
over towards the window. A nurse beyond the glass wheeled in the
infant when she noticed the name plate above her granddaughter’s
crib. “Um, no…not Steele. Why did they use Steele?” She looked
beyond the glass again for the nurse, but doesn’t see her. She does
however, notice an OB nurse wrapping a baby up in a cloth in
another glass room and tried to get her attention by tapping on the
window.

Tap…tap…tap.

No answer. She then knocked on the
window again and accidently interrupted all the babies in slumber,
and like dominoes, one by one started to cry.

The nurse pushed through a nearby
door, “Ma’am, please refrain from knocking on the
glass.”

Francine looked into her eyes, she
wasn’t a sympathetic nurse of any kind and she walked over to the
window and tried to explain. “You made a mistake,” Francine
clarified, “My daughter’s last name isn’t Steele, its Gersh. Steele
was her maiden name, her married name is now Gersh and I’m sure
she’d want to keep her daughter’s last name, and so would her
husband—of course.”

The nurse looked oddly at Francine.
“What’s the problem again?”

Francine tapped the window by
mistake, “This.”

“Ma’am, the glass,” the nurse asked
of her reaching out for her hand, but Francine was too quick and
she jerked it away.

“Oh, good heavens,” Francine said
exasperated now. “This,” she pointed at the glass window. “My
daughter’s last name isn’t Steele, its Gersh.”

The OB nurse walked over to the
glass and concentrated on Francine’s tapping fingers. “Ma’am
please,” and reached for Francine’s hand once more, but Francine
quickly hid them behind her back.

“OK, I’m sorry, but there’s still a
problem.”

“We never have problems in this
ward, ma’am,” the nurse proudly stated. “We make sure everything is
done correctly. We even put the babies in alphabetical
order.”

“That’s all fine and dandy, but
there’s still a problem,” Francine said a little annoyed with this
unsympathetic nurse, “And maybe I’m not explaining myself
correctly, because you still don’t understand!”

“But I do, I do understand!” The
nurse exclaimed, “You see, we have each baby correct, and there’s
never a problem. Baby Boy Anderson, Baby Boy Davenport, Baby Girl
Evans, Baby Boy Jackson—”

Francine was definitely upset now.
“No, no, no!” And without falling off the deep end, she walked over
to the glass all over again but this time closer. “Look woman, my
daughter’s last name is Gersh! Not Steele—” And just like that,
Francine’s whole world stopped.