An image of the VC we had killed flashed through my mind. I wondered if he had a family? Had he been out on a patrol? When did he know he was going to die?

What was worse than thinking about him dead was the way we looked at him. At least we had cared for Jenkins, had trembled when he died. He was one of us, an American, a human. But the dead Vietnamese soldier, his body sprawled out in the mud, was no longer a human being. He was a thing, a trophy. I wondered if I would become a trophy.

“We won.” Walowick came in after the volleyball game and sat on the edge of the bunk. “They’re paying us off in beer.”

“Way to go,” I said.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Seeing that dead gook mess you up some?”

“A little,” I said. “Maybe even more than Jenkins.”

“Who’s Jenkins?”