A cold day in Hue
By Jeff Manthos
It is a cold day in the Imperial City of Hue. Hue is in Vietnam. Vietnam is in hell.
The Imperial city is royally shattered, caving in to the latest war. Amidst this stands
a Marine, behind a low stone fence. It must be cold, he wears his field jacket.
Something bulges inside his jacket, in the crook of his right arm. His other arm out
straight, balancing the M-16 with tired experience, firing rounds at the enemy.
The bulge inside his jacket wiggles and squirms and a cold puppy nose pokes out,
followed by a puppy face and paws, all puppy energy and all held in check by the
tender grip of the young Marine.
Somewhere back in the States a young man plops down a squirmy puppy and the
young dog chases a tennis ball and jumps into a pond to retrieve a stick. Upon
returning, the puppy licks the young man?s face getting muddy paw prints on good
school clothes that?s likely the worst that will happen here.
Somewhere on the streets of Hue, in Tet of ?68 a young boy of a Marine holds his
puppy. There is no park, there is no pond, there are no tennis balls to chase. Just the
deserted streets of Hue, in Vietnam, in hell where a Marine, fighting for his life and
his comrades is somehow simultaneously able to still be a boy with his puppy
By Jeff Manthos
It is a cold day in the Imperial City of Hue. Hue is in Vietnam. Vietnam is in hell.
The Imperial city is royally shattered, caving in to the latest war. Amidst this stands
a Marine, behind a low stone fence. It must be cold, he wears his field jacket.
Something bulges inside his jacket, in the crook of his right arm. His other arm out
straight, balancing the M-16 with tired experience, firing rounds at the enemy.
The bulge inside his jacket wiggles and squirms and a cold puppy nose pokes out,
followed by a puppy face and paws, all puppy energy and all held in check by the
tender grip of the young Marine.
Somewhere back in the States a young man plops down a squirmy puppy and the
young dog chases a tennis ball and jumps into a pond to retrieve a stick. Upon
returning, the puppy licks the young man?s face getting muddy paw prints on good
school clothes that?s likely the worst that will happen here.
Somewhere on the streets of Hue, in Tet of ?68 a young boy of a Marine holds his
puppy. There is no park, there is no pond, there are no tennis balls to chase. Just the
deserted streets of Hue, in Vietnam, in hell where a Marine, fighting for his life and
his comrades is somehow simultaneously able to still be a boy with his puppy
