In the space of six months, they’d gone from a green and pleasant land to the hell of the battle. Bullets flew before they even got a chance to disembark. It seemed like half the battalion was dead or dying. He would never forget the stink of putrefying flesh mixed with cordite as they made their way through leafy country and across plains.
For most of the time he was protected by the rest of the guys who covered while he stayed well-hidden and picked off the enemy. If he’d been a cowboy, his gun wouldn’t have been long enough for all the notches. He was proud of, and horrified by, his work. They moved on: fighting, skirmishing, surviving.
Until the day a new stink hit their nostrils; the stink of human waste and wasted human life. The tragic parade of living dead, literally lousy, made him throw up. Bernie muttered ‘there but for the grace of God’.
Until that day, Mike Starsky had approached his job as sniper with mixed feelings; the men he picked off would have killed others, but dammit they were human beings and probably conscripted just like him.
But that anyone could do to others what he saw that day changed his mind. As the battalion progressed across the ruins of Europe, he had no compunction in picking them off.
He went home with medals and he let his little son play with them.
“I hope you will never have to see what I did, Davey. Or do what I had to do either.”
Twenty years later, David Starsky found himself in the heart of the jungle, finding the right position to be able to pick off the enemy and pick them off before they saw him.
Like his father, he had mixed feelings about shooting fellow human beings. Until the day, like his father, he came across a camp and saw the haggard ghosts of men in bamboo cages. The stench was unbearable; the human misery insupportable.
He saw what his father hoped he would never see: man’s inhumanity to man.
Like his father, he went home with medals.
Like his father, he used his skill with a gun in the name of law enforcement.
Now he was lying against the wheel of his car, and as the world blurred around him, he remembered white-wall tires, stained with his father’s blood. As he lost consciousness, he thought: “Like father, like son.”
Wow- powerful. Nicely done getting the point across, tying all these events together. Thank you!
This destroyed me, for which I am grateful.
Oh, jeez! That was heart breaking! I’m in the same boat as exbex. Destroyed! And sinking.
I love your Starsky’s army- time related stories and this beats the rest of ’em.
I don’t think I have ever read anything before where Starsky thinks of his dad when he gets shot. But of course, it would make sense. Wow! You did a great job weaving the canon and fanon backstories through to a very gut wrenching end. I was not expecting the ending at all. Well done!!
Wow, PP. Sad, powerful and wonderful. Love the intertwining of father and son, like for like. Thank you.
Yes, very powerful and moving. I especially loved the last bit where Starsky thinks “Like father, like son” when he is shot. Perfectly written.
“The stink of human waste and wasted human life.” Great line. I love your thought process.
thanks all. I had a long story in the writing and it got totally lost and confused – this was a flash in my brain 48 hours ago. Glad it worked
But Starsky’s got something his father didn’t have – Hutch!!!
Very well done, Hilly – it’s moving!!!
;D
What got me the most was that Starsky knew his father died, so he !just have figured to do the same. 🙁 What a tough bit blatantly powerful piece.
Powerful use of lives tracked in parallel. Thanks for sharing this.