A/N: Just a little something I came up with while watching Good Morning, Vietnam with my grandma and my aunt. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: I don't own The Outsiders.

Fragments

I think I found out early on that when you're young and at war, your mind wanders unceasingly, whether you want it to or not. You could be lying there in your foxhole listening to distant artillery, feeling the ground rattle beneath you as it rocked you to sleep to its twisted lullaby, and then just like that you're wondering how long it'll take before the noise drives you insane.

Sometimes it's not even the blood that gets to you, or the death. It's the gunshots, the constant rat-tat-tat of rounds leaving the chamber, and then you've got your hands closed over your ears, willing it to stop, but it doesn't. And your mind wanders again. You wonder if you'll live through this. You wonder how long it'll drag on. And then you remember to stop thinking, because if you think, you'll end up a dead son-of-a-bitch, just like the lieutenant warned you about.

In Vietnam I watched my comrades die and kill for nothing. I watched Jim Mancuso lose his mind and run outside the perimeter after dark. He took off like the devil himself was on his heels, rifle locked and loaded, and shot off round after round into the night while the rest of us watched in horror. He laughed maniacally, shouting things out about how the motherfuckers could come and get him now if they wanted – he wasn't afraid.

In the moonlight we could see his silhouette against the mountains, dark and shadowy, just like the war and our reasons for being a part of it. A few rounds before his magazine ran out he stopped and looked around, glancing back at us, and then with a satisfied grin he shot himself in the leg. He gave a sick, triumphant laugh, stumbled around a bit, and then hit the dirt ground.

He was evac'd out of there the next day, but none of us really ever found out what happened to him afterwards, or if he lived. He'd lost a lot of blood already and while Doc Cleveland tried to patch him up he spoke incoherently of snipers and jammed weapons and the feeling of bugs crawling all over his body, millions of them, though there were no bugs. Just fear and feeling.

A few days later on patrol I watched a new private just arrived in-country from some little hick town in Iowa get himself killed on account of sheer stupidity. He'd only been there a few days but he was younger than me, and dumb and carefree, and from what the platoon could see, not so quick to comprehend. Though he was the first one to spot the rigged C-ration can expertly hidden in the paddy dike for one of us unsuspecting GIs to step on.

He stopped and studied it carefully, prodding it with the butt of his rifle. Lieutenant Rossi, who was behind him, grabbed him forcefully by his shirt and turned him around. The two men faced each other now, one tough and vengeful – reminded me of Dallas – and the other scared shitless and stupid.

"What the fuck are you doin', troop? You wanna get us all killed? Huh?"

"It's a dud, sir," the kid said. Beads of sweat emerged upon the skin underneath his helmet and he wavered on his feet unsteadily. "I checked."

Lieutenant Rossi wasn't satisfied. "Well, next time it ain't gonna be no fuckin' dud. You hear me, troop? You ever pull somethin' like that again, I'll knock you clear into next week, do you read?"

"Yes, sir." I remembered his name then. Michael Dierden. Mike.

"Good. Then let's keep moving."

The LT shouldered his own rifle and paraded past Dierden, who took a step back to let him by, and just at that exact moment the supposed-dud booby trap went off right underneath his feet. It happened so fast, I hardly remember it. All I remember is what I saw afterwards – the kid was lying there whimpering, and then he was screaming his head off for his mother while his intestines lay in a bloody pile next to him, the whole of his abdomen blown open.

I turned my head so I didn't have to see, but listening to him scream in agony was worse, and trying to drown it out was impossible. The chopper came eventually and took him away, but we found out later he'd died somewhere over Cu Chi. None of us had expected him to live, though. Not through that.

A couple of days later I sat down to write a letter to Darry and Ponyboy back home. Nearby, a few guys were sitting around listening to Hanoi Hannah on the radio reminding us to keep our weapons clean in that sultry voice of hers. I tuned it all out, though, and tried to focus.

And when I was finished I realized the whole thing was lies. Every last word of it. I had told them that Vietnam was pretty when it wasn't, that the people were nice when they weren't, and above all, that I was perfectly fine when I was the furthest thing from it. I knew what the war had done to me as far as trauma and shock went, and I didn't want to give them any reason to worry. So I made it all up.

I gave my brothers reason to believe that things were real swell and that I wasn't scared.

But that night I burned that letter over the flame of a C-4 plastic explosive. I watched the edges brown and crumble and fall away like grenade fragments. I felt the presence of the dead ghost soldiers around me and in the heat and the firelight I watched as every last ounce of my equilibrium crumbled away with it.

A/N: My first try at writing a oneshot. Let me know what you think. :)