JumpMyBones
Really Experienced
- Joined
- Apr 25, 2014
- Posts
- 233
(Closed, but feel free to read along.
)
Indochina (Undisclosed Location)
1969
Lieutenant Phil Taylor did his best to evade the surface-to-air missiles but to no avail, with the last one -- essentially a giant shot gun shell at the end of a heat tracking rocket -- shredded his tail section and disabled much of his electronics, not to mention leaving several pieces of shrapnel in his right leg and chest.
He was able to keep the jet level and on a steady course. Unfortunately, he couldn't be certain what that course was. It was 3am, and he'd been doing low altitude recon under cloudy skies. His position when the missile struck had been northwest of the borders between the battling Viet Nams, over Laos, where no American aircraft should have been.
After his futile evasion attempts and the disabling of his electronics, he had no idea which way he was heading. He tried to lift the aircraft above the cloud cover to navigate by the stars, but every time he tried to increase his altitude, the plane's jet's threatened to peter out.
He had no choice: continued onward and hope he was more south than north, more east than west. Then, even that choice was taken from him. Twenty minutes into the emergency, he began passing out for several seconds -- or even minutes -- at a time. He was losing blood, and if he didn't bale now and, with luck, be able to stop his bleeding once on the ground, he would be unconscious ... when the plane plunged to either the ground or ocean below.
When he regained consciousness, Phil could hear voices but couldn't make out the words. He'd learned enough Vietnamese to order food and negotiate over prices and services with whores, but that was about it. And in his state of disorientation, he wasn't even sure that what he was listening to Vietnamese anyway.
He forced his eyes open and looked about himself. His eyes simply wouldn't focus beyond a few feet. He could have been anywhere. And while he wasn't able to focus on what was distant, he was able to focus on what -- or who -- was near.
They were young and scantily clad, and even in his state of injury and disorientation, it didn't take but just a moment for Phil to understand that the trio were members of the sex industry. They could have been just dancers, of course. But in this part of the world, exotic dancers and prostitutes were essentially one in the same.
He studied them for a moment, trying to determine their nationality. Right now he could have been in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, Thailand... Hell, if he'd been unconscious and transported by those who found him, he could be in Cambodia, China ... hell, there just wasn't anyway of knowing.
Not knowing where he was and -- being a simple country boy from the Midwest who'd grown up never having even met an Asian until he'd joined the military -- he didn't have a chance of identifying the nationality of these women either.
He closed his eyes after ogling their sexy forms and asked meekly, "Where am I?"
Indochina (Undisclosed Location)
1969
Lieutenant Phil Taylor did his best to evade the surface-to-air missiles but to no avail, with the last one -- essentially a giant shot gun shell at the end of a heat tracking rocket -- shredded his tail section and disabled much of his electronics, not to mention leaving several pieces of shrapnel in his right leg and chest.
He was able to keep the jet level and on a steady course. Unfortunately, he couldn't be certain what that course was. It was 3am, and he'd been doing low altitude recon under cloudy skies. His position when the missile struck had been northwest of the borders between the battling Viet Nams, over Laos, where no American aircraft should have been.
After his futile evasion attempts and the disabling of his electronics, he had no idea which way he was heading. He tried to lift the aircraft above the cloud cover to navigate by the stars, but every time he tried to increase his altitude, the plane's jet's threatened to peter out.
He had no choice: continued onward and hope he was more south than north, more east than west. Then, even that choice was taken from him. Twenty minutes into the emergency, he began passing out for several seconds -- or even minutes -- at a time. He was losing blood, and if he didn't bale now and, with luck, be able to stop his bleeding once on the ground, he would be unconscious ... when the plane plunged to either the ground or ocean below.
When he regained consciousness, Phil could hear voices but couldn't make out the words. He'd learned enough Vietnamese to order food and negotiate over prices and services with whores, but that was about it. And in his state of disorientation, he wasn't even sure that what he was listening to Vietnamese anyway.
He forced his eyes open and looked about himself. His eyes simply wouldn't focus beyond a few feet. He could have been anywhere. And while he wasn't able to focus on what was distant, he was able to focus on what -- or who -- was near.
They were young and scantily clad, and even in his state of injury and disorientation, it didn't take but just a moment for Phil to understand that the trio were members of the sex industry. They could have been just dancers, of course. But in this part of the world, exotic dancers and prostitutes were essentially one in the same.
He studied them for a moment, trying to determine their nationality. Right now he could have been in South Vietnam, North Vietnam, Laos, Thailand... Hell, if he'd been unconscious and transported by those who found him, he could be in Cambodia, China ... hell, there just wasn't anyway of knowing.
Not knowing where he was and -- being a simple country boy from the Midwest who'd grown up never having even met an Asian until he'd joined the military -- he didn't have a chance of identifying the nationality of these women either.
He closed his eyes after ogling their sexy forms and asked meekly, "Where am I?"