This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments. And last but not least, Nifty would like your donations.

Farewell, Uncle Ho

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

Chapter 41 (Mon., Jan. 16)

It was after 2000 hours by the time we got back to the barracks. Sean was sitting at the top of the stairs next to a red butt can, smoking and apparently deep in thought. He looked up to see who was coming through the door, but didn't seem surprised to see us. "Kept the fire going in your room for you."

"Thanks Sean." We squeezed past him at the top of the stairs.

"What did they want?" The concern in his voice was probably because he thought that it could have involved him.

Gerry chuckled grimly. "The only thing that was missing were the bamboo splinters under the fingernails."

Sean picked up the butt can and followed us to the room. "Aw, come on."

I took off my field jacket and flung it onto the bunk. "First, I was told that the Army was asking around the various governmental departments whether they have any information on me. Second, I was interrogated by an American Nazi who told me that I'd probably lost my US citizenship when I voted in a French election, which was confirmed by a very understanding JAG officer. Then the ASA informed me that I no longer qualified to be in their illustrious ranks since I'm not an American anymore. And Uncle Sam won't station poor Gerry in Germany, since he's German, as illogical as that may sound. So, our present information is that we are headed off for cushy legal-clerk school to be assigned to the Office of the Staff Judge Advocate in scenic downtown Saigon."

Sean dearly wanted not to believe me. "You're joking, right?" He looked at Gerry for a different version.

"'Fraid not, Sports Fan." Gerry put an arm around my shoulder. "And just remember that you gave us the start in our legal careers by explaining what an Article 15 was. Be proud, Soldier."

Gerry and I were indulging ourselves in a round of gallows humor, and Sean was starting to look panicked when we heard a car drive up and stop outside. "That'll be Haruki." He looked through the window and waved. "Can you take care of lights out?" When Gerry and I nodded, he burst out the door. "See you in the morning."

"That's a relief." Gerry laughed. "Thought he wanted his bunk back."

"Funny, that was sort of the idea I got, too." I opened my wall locker and got out the C-rations and the last two bottles of beer that we'd forgotten to drink last night. Since we'd missed both lunch and supper at the mess hall, asking Gerry if he were hungry would have been redundant, much like the rest of the day. "What'll it be, Cute Guy, turkey loaf or beef in spiced sauce?"

"I picked last time, so you pick." Again the urge to cuddle him hit me broadside.

"Let's trade when we're halfway through." He nodded energetically. It looked like he found eating out of the same olive-drab tin can as erotic as I did.

When I got through with opening the cans with the P-38, I wiped it off on my pants, closed it and handed it to him. "Keep this on you at all times. It's as handy as a Swiss Army Knife." I placed the two tinned meals onto the stove and dumped out the contents of the 'goodie bags' onto the table. His curiosity got the better of him and he came over to see what the things were.

There were four packs of four each cigarettes, two were Kools and two were Marlboro. "You take the Marlboro, and I'll take the Kools."

"You don't smoke." I sounded concerned, even to my own ears.

"I'm thinking about starting." He snorted. "It'll give me something to do while we're waiting around for things to happen."

"And the health issue?" I reminded him.

"Aw, for crying out loud, Ben, we're shipping off to Vietnam." He was somewhere between laughing and crying. "We should be worried about lead poisoning. As things stand now, I really can't get all that riled up by the possibility of getting lung cancer."

***

There were three things of which both of us were very aware: we were in love, a fact that was intensifying every day; we would be shipping off to Vietnam at some time during this year, and this would be the last time for several weeks, where we would be able to express our affection.

As soon as we returned to our mattress on the floor, we sought closeness. We hadn't been permitted by law to touch each other all day. We still weren't. But, as I saw it, where there was neither accuser nor victim, there was no crime.

I was propped against the metal frame of the bunk; he straddled my midsection. His crack rubbed up and down the length of my cock. My fingertips brushed his nipples. My tongue rimmed his right ear. He turned to face me, letting his member cuddle mine.

We drifted over to lying on our sides, with limbs intertwined. His tongue found mine in the slight vacuum of his kiss. The scent of our kissing caused my senses to spin. Smells of our withdrawn skins made our pulses stronger. I lifted his left arm to access the musky smells of fear, concern, and finally the testosterone of sexual attraction.

His nails, short from biting, scratched my back at the top of my ass. We inhaled our communal breath and exhaled in time with our kissing. He turned his back to offer himself on the altar of passion, as I dipped my middle finger into shortening and applied it where needed, wanted, lusted after.

My insertion was deliberate, slow, intended to create maximum pleasure for him. My own pleasure was just being with him, to feel his warmth, to inhale his scents.

His trust in me, I knew, was a product of his vulnerability. And I swore never to betray it, him, us, for what reason ever, which would be, without question, never.

He grunted lasciviously, as my member was fully encased by his soft, moist tissue. He tightened his muscles; my erection throbbed; his breathing increased. I felt my extraction / insertion / extraction hasten with his breathing. I felt detached from this act. My senses were expanding and contracting with his breaths, not with my thrusts.

My own climax was satisfyingly unimportant; I withdrew, scooping up fluids from his anus to transfer to my own. And, as anticipated, I felt delirious as he entered, pushing past my prostate. His urgency was slightly more than mine. His girth and length were more than just slightly larger than mine.

Over the past couple of days, I had become used to his size, but I would never become used to his affection. His thrusts were tender, his whispers told me why. As his erection massaged me inside, his fingers massaged my skin.

Of a sudden, I felt the urge to be used. Offering him my hole on all fours, signaled my desire to be fucked. I loved him; he knew it. He loved me, and I knew that. It was now time for our inner animals to get their dues. I needed to feel like a slut, and he needed to know it.

He got the message and skewered me. He held himself steady by the skin of my ass. He spanked me with his tight belly. He came, thrusting it in. He collapsed onto my back, drooling onto my shoulder. And that's exactly where I found him five hours later, when I woke him for our run.

***

One thing that became glaringly obvious this morning was that the run wasn't at all effective, since we kept stopping in the shadows to suck one another's tongue. Urgency was omnipresent for both of us. We were awash with anticipation, with an apprehension of what it was going to be like to have to be physically close, as in close proximity, but not being able to touch. We were destined, we knew, to become creatures of shadows, living for the next opportunity to disappear out of sight, so we could be emotionally close.

Actually, the only productive part of the run was that we were able to ditch the empty beer bottles and tin-cans in a dumpster at the end of the row of barracks. At least, we got that taken care of. And we were pretty much emotional wrecks by the time we got back to the barracks.

We arrived at the cinder patch as First Call sounded, even though we were nowhere near a racetrack. Some of the guys were milling about, smoking, chatting, playing grab ass. It was coming up to 0600 and since Sean was nowhere to be seen, I assumed that I would have to honor the colors at reveille, like Gerry had taught me. I gave Gerry a nod, and he told the guys left in the barracks to fall out. And true to form they were all lined up and dressed right, as I took my position.

"At-ten-hut!" I yelled. "Present… ARMS!" And on the dot, the tinny loud speakers belched out the bugle call as we all faced Mecca. "Order... ARMS!" I yelled when the ditty had finished.

Although I dissociated myself from everything military as a shameful tool of failed politics, I was really proud to be hooked up with this group of guys. We all came from sundry parts of New York, mostly from the City but a surprising number from as far upstate as the Canadian border. We had the whole menu of cultural diversity, but we were all New Yorkers and we all belonged to 3rd Platoon. And oddly enough, we'd been able to function as a unit since day one.

"God damn!" boomed the voice of First Sergeant from behind us. He'd obviously been on the prowl since before reveille.

"Stand at… EASE." I shouted and almost laughed. No one had yet discovered that I was responding like this because I was a perfectionist and had been given a task, not because I felt any loyalty to the United States.

"God damn!" First Sergeant was pleased about something. "I have never, and I repeat never, in my almost twenty years of service, ever seen troops still at the Reception Center able to fall into formation and honor the colors as well as you people just did." He took another deep breath. "God damn it!"

Everyone was grinning, and it looked like Gerry's face would cramp from smiling. First Sergeant was walking around the troops, nodding.

He then returned to the front. "At-ten-hut!" he yelled and nodded. Even the grins had disappeared. "Right, FACE!" His scrutiny grew. "About, FACE!" At this, both his eyebrows almost vanished inside his Smoky-the-Bear hat. Then came the proof of cohesion. "Parade, REST!" Of a sudden, he had his flashlight out to see the position of the hands. "God damn! I suppose that this is your handiwork, Private Loughery?"

"No, First Sergeant, it is not." I answered truthfully, since Gerry, Mancini, and Morton, our three ROTCs, had done it all. I just acted like I knew what I was doing.

"God Damn! A platoon leader who don't take all the credit. What's this man's Army comin' to?" By this time, he was randomly asking men to open their field jackets so he could check their gig lines with his flashlight, and then bouncing its beam off the highly polished boots. "If it wasn't you, Private Loughery, tell me who it was that managed this miracle."

"First of all, First Sergeant, we function as a unit." I stressed this because it was absolutely true. "But instruction was provided by Privates Morton, Helmstedter, and Mancini."

"I think we have our four squad leaders. Okay, Trainees, listen up! Due to circumstances beyond anyone's control, your basic will start on Thursday, 19 January. Until then, you may move about post, but do not leave. Do you understand?"

And then he almost laughed when there was a resounding: "Yes, First Sergeant."

"God damn!" Now, he did laugh. "Didn't even hear one 'Sir'. Damn, you people are good." He lowered his volume somewhat. "No, I take that back. You people are fucking scary.

"Alright, no sense in standing out here in the cold. Privates Morton, Helmstedter, and Loughery, I want to see you after I dismiss these fine soldiers." First Sergeant chuckled, again. "Fall out!"

He took Gerry, Morton, and me to one side. "It seems that they found your would-be Drill Instructor, Sergeant Walker, hanging from the showerhead in his billets, this morning. He left a note, so it appears that no one else was involved."

Morton appeared to take the news the worst, but I was sure that he didn't know the man. "Can we go to the funeral?"

First Sergeant shook his head. "That wouldn't be appropriate."

Morton quickly wiped a tear off his cheek before it froze. "Why not?"

The moisture in First Sergeant's eyes couldn't be ignored, but his voice didn't falter. "Because suicides, like deserters, are cowards and never get a military burial."