A short and rathe crappy sledge/snafu affair
*based off the actors portrayals in HBOs the pacific not the actual people, also any spelling/grammar/other mistakes are mine sorry, also, my knowledge of PTSD and other things such as PTSD are shady and.. Well artistic listen has been taken. Also I am a crap writer cool. Also, also, any PIC or derogatory names do not reflect my actual views, okay it's mean to be written at a certain time, from the point of view of someone who thinks like that, so yeh, I don't condone language like that, and lastly, done on my mobile so the formatting is crap and hard to read sorry...*
~
Things werent the same.
It's not like snafu expected to get home from what could aptly be described as hell, and for everything to fall back into it's uneasy order. It's not like snafu had been all there when he'd signed up for the marines all those years ago, but he could feel it, he had felt it, when the last if his innocence and basic human decency had been snuffed from his body. It was cape gloucester and a mans entrails had been blasted all over his upper torso. He could still feel the hot sticky blood that had caked his face for the next week because the oppertunity to wash his buddies insides off his face hadn't arisen. He could still taste his blood. After that it hadn't seemed to matter. He didn't, couldn't possibly believe he would ever make it out of that battle, let alone ever leave the war. He had resigned himself to a shallow grave on some godforsaken island in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. But he hadn't been given that luxury. He'd barely made it out of cape Gloucester, and had been sent to peleliu. Which had been worse. Endless nights of fear, death, disease, combat and flies. He hadn't even been spared life then, but had then been sent to Okinawa to slowly die in the slovenly mess of mud and death. He couldn't believe that anywhere could smell that bad and he was a bayou born and raised louisianan. He hadn't been a believer before he left, and he sure as fuck wasn't one now, but everynight while he was on those islands in the pacific, he prayed that he would finally be delivered from the shit hole that life in the pacific was and be killed already. Well, that was until peleliu. Which was where he had met Eugene Sledge. Eugene sledge was as green as they came. At first 'boot' didn't even cover it. He was just like them all. Eager to fight and not only thrown in at the deep end but tied to a fucking brick and thrown in the ocean. Snafu had pitched him at 2 weeks at best. He could see in his minds eye this boy, awkward and southern, lying, glassy eyed and vacant, dead, life shot right out of him in a ditch. A shallow fucking grave. He was just so pure. He stole a waterproof bag off a dead jap to keep his bible. Fucking unbelievable. Snafu would watch him keep notes in it. Snafu had addressed him about that, being his superior, it was his duty or something to stop the new guys breaking rules such as no keeping diaries. But snafu had left it. A mans gotta do what a mans gotta do to keep sane In the pit of peleliu. Some couldn't, and finally hit their limit. Some went to drink, some went to drugs. Some, like snafu, killed the necessary parts of their emotional spectrum to keep a somewhat level head. Eugene apparently decided on coming to the pacific he would do none of those things. Snafu had to practically force a cigarette down his throat (even after he developed a liking for a pipe. Which snafu had found hilarious) He remembered the first time sledgehammer, as he'd fondly been nicknamed, had seen snafu cut gold out of some dead Japs mouth. He had been horrified. Snafu hadn't understood. Gold was fucking expensive. This habit was going to make him rich. He'd tried to explain this to sledge but he'd just looked nauseated. Later, sledge had gone to do the same thing, but snafu had been grasped suddenly by the need to protect his innocence and had bullshitted him with the threat of 'germs' and that is what slowly took over his half assed prayers to bondye. To keep sledge safe, to keep him whole, to keep him pure and golden. Snafu had never reckoned on being that guy. That fucking cliche. The man, who had been on the island too long maybe, or had been without a woman or a sexual touch for so long, that they found their love in their men. But then again, he'd never reckoned on being that guy either. The guy who stayed in the shower until the hard faucet turned icy and battered his skin raw because he couldn't get rid of the stench of death and the blood which seemed to coat him. Or the guy who woke up everynight screaming bloody murder and feeling imaginary maggots crawling under his skin. But he'd become both of those things and he guessed he'd have to make do. Snafu fucking envied the guys who'd had it quick. A sudden bite in the back of the head from a Japanese bullet. No. He hadn't been granted that fucking luxury and now he had to live with the memories of the fucking war. Snafu breathed in deeply, the sounds of jazz slowly drifting through his apartments window. If you could call it that. He had spent 4 fucking years fighting for his country, to be left broken and poorer than when he left. His apartment was a cupboard and sometimes, he fucking missed his foxhole. At least then he'd had sledge pressed up against him, warm and alive. Here all he had was a hard pillow, a packet of luckies, a bottle of whisky and the fucking nightmares. He stood up slowly and lit a lucky, slowly inhaling the silky smoke. Thinking about sledge had aroused something inside of him, an aching in his stomach, almost a yearning. Snafu made for the door without hesitation, pulled on a coat and walked down and out of the apartment building which had been his new prison since the war. He slipped into a phone booth and dialled for the operator "how can I help?" a cough cought in his throat
"uh, yeh I would like an address please"
"name and state please"
"Eugene sledge, Alabama"
"just one moment please-" the dial tone rang through the phone. He waited patiently, chewing the inside of his mouth.
"I have one address for a sledge" Snafu wrote the address down on the back of his hand
"merci Cher" he said before hanging up. If there was one thing mama Shelton had taught him it was to be polite to ladies. He followed that rule. Sometimes. Well, rarely. But if he was going to be honest, mama Sheltons ideals were not the best and snafu had got on just fine not listening to her. He would make one last trip to his sad ass house and then leave. It was done.
~
sledge had fitted himself back into the mundane civillion life with difficulty. He couldn't make his life fit in somehow. His being was hollow and cold and he no longer knew how to adapt, how to fit in. On peleliu and Okinawa, things were just different. The enemy were 'japs' or 'nips' it didn't matter that they were fathers, brothers, humans, because one of them just killed your buddy, now though, people scolded him, called him insensitive and racist if he said those words. And men stole and killed and swore like sailors. It was how you survived. But now, now sledge was lost. He'd sworn in front of his ma, he'd scoffed when she'd asked him to church, and he'd told graphic disembowelment stories to his 5 year old niece. It was as if he had no internal inhibiters. Even against snafus best efforts (yes, he had noticed) he had still come out of the war changed and... Broken. He awoke everynight drenched in sweat, and the blood of long dead buddies. He yelled and screamed and nothing made it better. He couldn't even confide in Sid or his brother. They just didnt know. They couldn't. Sid had a closer handle on sledges experience, but he'd been rotated home after guadalcanal, and, as sledge jokingly pointed out, John baslione did all the fighting. It was all in good humor. One of the things Sledge had retained was his humor. Or at least his ability to laugh. He often wished he'd been killed, left to rot down, to become the ground, to go to heaven, or maybe to he'll. But, no. No here he was, still alive, in some ways. It was a Sunday when he heard his ma yell up the stairs:
"gene, there's a man here to see you"
Somewhat perplexed, sledge put down the book he was reading and padded slowly along the carpeted landing to the top of the stairs to see his unsuspected guest. To say that he was shocked when he saw a very uncomfortable looking snafu standing awkwardly in his porch, would've been an understatement: he nearly fell down the stairs. He wanted to run down and hug him, tell him that he missed him and that now he was here he could maybe let go. Instead, he stormed down and went right up into his face
"you left me merielle shelton, you left me alone on that fucking train and you didn't even say goodbye what the hell?" he heard his ma cough behind him at the profanities, he took no notice. Snafu looked at him with docile grey eyes. He blinked slowly before looking down.
"ah'm sorry sledghammer, I shouldn'a left you, it wasn't right, I should'a said goodbye at least but I ain't no good at sayin goodbye" Eugenes mouth went into a thin angry line
"that's not good enough shelton and you know it"
"sledge, ah'm sorry. What we went through, on them islands, it weren't right, it weren't human. And for the entire time ah was there ah wanted to leave. But for some reason when ah saw you sleepin ah couldn't do it. It felt like ah was lettin you go, and tha' was something ah couldn't do. Not then, not now" Eugene looked deep into snafus eyes, which he had gotten used to being cold, hard, dead from war, blind to the atrocities around him. But now they were remorseful, lachrymose, full of sincerity. He looked vulnerable, like he had lain himself open. Eugene looked down at his hands.
"I'm sorry too. Sorry for expectin you to move on so quickly. I always figured that nothin fazed you you know? You was so unbreakable, calm" Snafu pulled out a cigarette and placed in in his mouth before looking up "no harm no foul, ain't that right"
Eugene smiled Maybe things could be better. Maybe he could start thinking about moving on now. and who knows, snafu shelton was here.
"gene tell your friend we don't smoke in the house"