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Show the musk of Vietnam from hio body and we had exchanged reaffirmed covenants, I found t h a t I was deep in love, almost instantly. In l e s s than an hour I had l o s t my independence, s e l f - my capacity to survive alone and l o n e l y . My s t e r n c o n t r o l was reduced to shimmering, molten love. We stayed awake f a r i n t o the n i g h t , t a l k i n g of Vietnam and reviewing current events on the mainland. I had attended a few student p r o t e s t s a g a i n s t the war, and Brian was perplexed. "You're l e t t i n g me down," he s a i d . His eyes were hurt. "No! No, I'm not. I want you to come home a l i v e . I want the war to end." "But...those h i p p i e s . . . t h e y say we're wrong. They say we're immoral." I studied the figured s h e e t s . "There have been some nasty rumors about the t r u e motivations of the war. And about what goes on there. " "Oh, I understand why t h e y ' d think we're a bunch of savages. Nothing i s c l e a r - c u t over t h e r e . What we have to do to say we've won a p o s i t i o n . . . " He stopped t a l k i n g and stared at the ceiling for a long time. When he spoke again, h i s voice was c o n s t r i c t e d . "There was a boy - about as old as your l i t t l e brother, h e ' s seven now, right? The kid came running at u s . He was holding something." Brian stopped and drew i n h i s b r e a t h . "I was r i d i n g shotgun f°r a truck carrying about f o r t y men. Just a week before a kid had blown up a troop t r a n s p o r t with s i x t y men aboard; he threw a grenade i n t o the h o l d . " He shook h i s head. I could see beads of sweat on h i s upper l i p . "No one e l s e saw him coming. Just me- I had to do something. I wanted to stop him, wing him. But |