Death in the Jungle Gary Smith (mobi reader txt) 📖

empty feeling. Every tick of the clock seemed to get slower and slower, making me almost believe that some powerful demon was working me over to make the passage of time as painful as possible. I was unable to think about the meaning of Christmas at all as I dwelled on my loneliness.

I decided to escape the blues through the bottle. At 1630 hours I went to the club to drink a couple beers before supper. Martin and some of the MST guys were there, and several rounds were bought for me. I drank and drank and never made it to the chow hall; instead, I got drunk along with everyone else.

Around 2230 hours, my drinking buddies and I were kicked out of the club, so we took the band with us back to the SEAL barracks. The band played and we sang Christmas songs that I hadn’t sung since I was a boy. Some of the guys jumped around and clapped their hands like kindergarten kids. There were no parents, no wives, no relatives to hug, but plenty of brothers.

At 2400 hours, the party ended. I made my way to the chow hall, where a priest was conducting Mass. I sat in a chair in the back, behind a couple dozen other men in attendance. The priest was speaking, but I was in no shape to absorb much of what he was saying. My head hurt too much. And yet, I was there, and that was enough for me on this special occasion. To be in a place where God was spoken of—that was important to me that night. Why? Because I knew there had to be a God. I ran away from Him most of the time, but tonight I needed to be near Him. Or at least hear about Him. For me, that had always been a part of my family’s Christmas. So, I sat and tried to listen, failing for the most part but trying, nevertheless.

When the service concluded, I outran sleep to my bed, but just barely. My head hit the pillow and that was that.

When I awoke at 0730 hours on Christmas morning, the hurt in my head was so sharp that I considered downing a bottle of whiskey to kill the pain. My better judgment stopped me, however, and I downed three aspirins instead.

I made my way to the chow hall and ate breakfast, all the while wishing I could pour the bowl of thick oatmeal into my brain to act as a buffer against the banging going on inside. Every time I closed my eyes for a few seconds, I could see a miniature man running around in my skull wielding a sledgehammer. And there was no way for me to ambush the little devil and cut him down. My training, extensive though it had been, had offered no course of action on handling hangover situations, so I had to rely solely on my years of frontline experience.

I returned to my cubicle with a towel wrapped around a dozen ice cubes. After swallowing another aspirin, I flopped into bed and lay on my back, then draped the cold portion of the towel across my forehead. As the cubes gradually melted and the towel got wetter, the pounding lessened, and I fell asleep.

At 1115 hours, I woke up to the faint sound of singing and laughing. My towel had slid off my face, but my pillow was soaked with water. Feeling well, I sat up. I closed my eyes for several seconds, and there was no man or hammering. Only the singing.

I crawled out of bed and started walking toward the noise, which led me out of the barracks to a large mound of sand. A half dozen of my teammates were sitting on the mound, drinking beer and singing Christmas carols to the PBR sailors as they walked by. McCollum saw me approaching and called out to me.

“Smitty! I’ve been wonderin’ when you’d get here!”

I walked up to him and took a seat in the sand beside him.

“What are you guys doin’?” I asked.

McCollum grinned at me. “We’re bringin’ Christmas cheer to the whole damn base! ‘Jingle Bells,’ ‘Deck the Halls,’ ‘Joy to the World.’ You name it, we do it!”

I chuckled. “How ’bout ‘Doc Brown’s Christmas Swim’? Can you do that one?”

“Absolutely!” McCollum reached back to his rear pants pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He smiled at me as he opened it up. He got everyone’s attention, then announced that he was going to sing a solo, but he wanted all of us to sing the song’s chorus as we caught on to it.

He began to the tune of “Jingle Bells”:

“Doc Brown went to bed,

too much liquor in his head,

and when he went to sleep,

his sleep was very deep.

And when the morning came,

nothing was the same,

’cause when he opened up his eyes

he got a big surprise.

Oh, on his bed

in the head,

floating on the floor.

Oh, what fun it is to ride

a mattress in the war!

On his bed

in the head

in water from the sink.

Next time he’ll float a sampan,

pretending he’s a dink!”

As McCollum finished the chorus, the rest of us cracked up. McCollum grinned at me and kept singing. After two more verses, we were all joining in on the chorus, singing as loudly as we could. When the song was over, we had Muck take us through the whole thing again. I was amazed at how good we sounded as we put down Doc Brown one last time. But it was all in fun. Doc had had his with his needle; now we had fun with ours.

I sang some Christmas carols with the men for another hour, drinking only one beer because I was tired of the effect alcohol had had on me lately. Then I ate lunch before going back to my cubicle to read and to write my parents.