The Massacre at My Lai by Jenna Marie (free reads .TXT) 📕

The Americans came, wielding their black guns around them for safety. The men were yelling commands at each other in English on the street, and then would break into houses and businesses, coming back out with blank stares on their faces. They were coming back onto the street with my friends and neighbors; holding machine guns to their backs. Normally, only young men were involved in a moment like this; but the Americans were taking women, old men, and even children.
My mother ran inside our small, dark home from the yard. She anxiously called for me, wanting me to follow her out of the back door. I was about to leave when an American soldier broke down our front door. It splintered into a million little wood fragments and clattered to the floor. Several others then ran in behind the man with the dark hair and mustache, wielding their guns as well.
One man, in a uniform that was a darker green color than the other soldiers' uniforms seized me.Another soldier grabbed my mother and baby brother. A third woke my grandfather from a peaceful looking sleep on my favorite plush brown chair. The young American boy that came to stand behind me began to lead me from the house with a gun to my head and my hands pulled tightly behind my back. The same happened to the other remaining members of my family.
The Americans solemnly marched us outside of our town into mud and taller grasses, where we were released into a larger mob of our tattered and distressed friends and neighbors. There was a small bunker past the many heads in the crowd that must have been about fifty feet away from the long ditch that we had been led to. Our mob soon merged into a slow-moving, single file line to the deeply dug ditch. The sound of gunfire rang through the air, followed immediately bu the screams and moans of innocent people that were being slaughtered by the Americans. I just figured this was another new and complicated war strategy.
We were all soon pushed into the deep, muddy ditch once there was room for more. I held my brother's hand tightly as we slid down the black soft muck that covered the ground. It made a sucking sound as we walked. I cautiously stepped over the motionless, lifeless bodies of people that I had seen before, in town.
I neared the end of the wall of soggy earth and turned to face the Americans. They began to fire.
The soldiers started at one end of the long, muddy ditch and quickly made their way towards my family. The gray smoke emanating from the barrels of the black machine guns puffed away almost too quickly. The remnants of the smoke filled the ditch and mixed with the smells of blood and death. It was a revolting smell that made my stomach churn. As for the sound of the guns, I had never heard anything so loud in my life. The loud, consistent, pulsing bangs

made my ears ring; making the sound echo through my head. There were more screams from civilians near me, and the fresh metallic scent of blood began to overpower the original stomach churning stench.
I waited until the men firing at us in the green and brown uniforms were about three feet away before I threw myself into the slimy mud on top of my baby brother to protect him. If anyone was going to live, it would be him.
A bullet hit me in the back. I screamed as the pressure from the lead entering my body turned into pure, searing pain. Two more soon entered the calf of my left leg. My breathing was becoming faster and shallower as a helicopter paused in the air above our heads, and the Americans on the ground soon receded slightly.
I feared that they were going to drop a bomb on us. They didn't. In fact, the helicopter landed a few dozen feet from the edge of the wall above my head, near the small bunker that I had noticed earlier. The immense wind the propellers made ripples in the long grasses, and threw my long, black hair everywhere. I rolled over, reluctantly exposing by bloodied, surprisingly alive, four-year-old brother; and took in my last moment of life.
Out of the ditch, I could see the gray cloudy sky and the edges of the soft, earthy walls. Past the top of my head, I could just make out the blur of the helicopter's propellers that happened to be the same color as the sky. The purr of the rattling motor was just about as loud as all of the machine guns had been; maybe louder. On the other side of the ditch, I stared at the head of the young American that had fired three times at me. His gun was now pointed at the helicopter. Past him to my right were the thin branches of a tall tree that, from what i could tell, had bullet holes in the majority of the green-brown leaves.
The leaves and thin branches blew vigorously in the wind. The tree's low, bent branches were covered in little black birds with orange beaks that didn't seemed to mind the helicopter's breeze. The high, sweet chirping sound they made was nearly drowned out bu the thrum of the propellers. It was the complete opposite of what one would think they would hear in battle. Some of them were frightened by the drone of the American helicopter and flew away, forming a large "V" in the sky that few over the ditch and past the bunker.
The man above me disappeared. My vision began to blur tremendously, and my breathing desperately slowed even further. My life was coming to a close.
As my blurred eyes were slowly shutting, a kind-looking, distressed American in about his forties slid down the slippery side of the ditch above me, dirtying his uniform. He walked towards me and my younger brother through the mud, bodies, and blood. The four-year-old squirmed under my arm. The man in the filthy, tan, wrinkled uniform picked up my brother and held him close. My brother whined and twisted himself around, making gestures as if he were trying to grab me. That American didn't know I was alive. He turned anyway, and was helped out of the ditch by two men with guns. I realized they were there to protect the one with my brother in his arms.
He had trouble getting out. The mud slid beneath his feet, which pushed the wall apart;covering my legs with the cool, slushy ground--practically burying me. Three men in green walked away with my brother, taking him, hopefully, to safety. I was thankful for their assistance.
The helicopter's motor got louder, and I watched its immense, fuzzy, oval-shaped form fly over me and the other innocent and dead civilians, which sent another harsh warm wind into the hole.
I stared up at the gray sky as everything finally went back as the midnight sky around me.

Text: jennamariexoxo
Images: Google
Publication Date: 09-18-2012

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