Jorgenson started searching through the rubble with Krakauer.
The back of his neck was tingly because of all the adrenaline still flowing in his blood stream.
His hands were even shaking.
He was tired, very tired.
His left temple was pulsing painfully, but he had to hold tight because the mission wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot. Furthermore, with no radio at their disposal, he couldn’t imagine what would come next.
Without their long-range radio, Jorgenson really didn’t know how they were going to get back home.
Jorgenson started kicking rubble here and there.
He was short on breath.
He had to stop for a bit and knew perfectly well that he didn’t have a choice about giving in to what his body needed. He wasn’t keen on the idea though because as long as they were in that damn base they were all still very much in danger.
There still wasn’t any sign of weapons or documents around illustrating the reason for building that base.
Could it have been nothing more than just a prison camp?
Further ahead, just under some debris, Jorgenson came across some bodies.
They weren’t only visible but he could smell them too despite having killed them only moments earlier with his two M72s.
Jorgenson took a few more slow, cautious steps before the entire event unfolded before his very eyes.
The bodies were carbonized black with twisted fingers and others had broken contorted legs and some were detached.
The majority of their faces had been blown away.
Not to mention their arms, in fact one of them actually, had really short arms.
It seemed to have very small fingers too, almost doll like.
No.
That hand was too small for Jorgenson's mind to come to terms with.
No, no, no, this can’t be.
A sharp pain seemed to pierce through his heart.
What did he do?
What the hell had he done?
As he moved forward through the rubble over the little hand. he started digging faster until practically throwing it aside.
No.
He saw six, maybe even seven bodies.
Women, Laotian women and children.
“Fuck no”
He had to be hallucinating. It couldn't be otherwise.
Jorgenson was a father, father to a little girl. He couldn't have truly been responsible for killing a baby.
Worse still, it didn’t end there, there were two other children there, and four mothers.
No, it couldn’t possibly have been Jorgenson. He couldn't have been the one who killed them.
Not by his own hand.
Maybe it was nothing but another one of Trautman's practical jokes, one of those damn tricks he always used to play on them, trying to mess with their heads. Those used to nearly drive him crazy and back when they were in Fort Bragg. It might only be that. Now that they were really fucked up because they didn’t have a radio, and given that they were all probably going to die, that vision was probably nothing but a practical joke.
Nevertheless, Jorgenson somehow knew that it wasn’t.
Everything here was genuine.
Only when he finally reached for those bodies did the reality of it all actually hit him. He felt so overwhelmed by it, that it was near to being sucker punched right in the face.
“NO! NOOO!” he started screaming like crazy.
Someone grabbed him straightaway by the shoulder, but upset as he was, Jorgenson didn’t even understand who it was.
So he pulled away from him too.
“NOOOOOOOO”
Jorgenson felt himself being blocked again, and this time with far more strength but it was too late.
He had completely lost himself, he was out of his mind.
He’d fallen inside some kind of bottomless pit, inside of which he was forced to face the consequences of all his horrible actions. Everything he’d done. He knew he would never be able to climb out of that bottomless hole again. Not ever.
“Boss!” shouted Krakauer.
“We’ve got a problem boss!”
Jorgenson freed himself again, this time using even more vehemence than before.
Instantly, he was over by the bodies again.
All the victims were wearing Laotian tribal clothing.
Those were Laotian slaves, captured and forced to work on the Vietcong construction sites.
It was a common occurrence along the Ho Chi Minh trail.
Most of the victims were crushed by the collapsing building, while the others, who had been closer to the rocket explosion, had literally burnt to death.
Four women, a newborn and two other children – he thought counting the heads (and bodies).
Seven in total.
Two, maybe three entire families.
In the meantime, Krakauer was still kneeling on the ground holding his head in pain still stunned by how his friend had reacted.
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING GRIZZLY?” Ortega shouted at the top of his lungs.
Jorgenson turned.
Ortega was moving quickly towards him as though wanting to fight.
Jorgenson however, didn’t move.
The real world was lightyears away at that moment.
When Ortega finally got him he grabbed him violently by his uniform collar and held it tight very nearly strangling him, until the pain finally brought him back to reality.
For Jorgenson, it was like waking up from a dream.
“I KILLED 'EM!” he shrieked.
“Calm down, God damn it! We’ve got far worse problems right now!” Ortega screamed back as he shook him.
“I FUCKING KILLED THEM!”
Jorghenson was spitting as he screamed, and his tone of voice seemed to be mving from rage to tears.
“I FUCKING KILLED THEM!”
“OF COURSE YOU DID, GRIZZLY! I ORDERED YOU TO DO IT!”
It was only with that recollection did Jorgenson give signs of calming down slightly.
“DON'T... don't you...”
“They were Vietcong slaves - said Ortega - slaves who were kidnapped and forced to work! We couldn't see them from outside! We couldn't have known!”
“I shouldn’t have shot at the hut!”
“I ordered you to do it so that we didn’t put the American POWs in jeopardy. This shit happens in war. Fuck. Today, we attacked an enemy of fifty with eight soldiers. We made a mistake while we were doing it. That’s all.”
Ortega let Jorgensen’s collar go.
“I ordered you to do it. I gave you the order” repeated Ortega, in a hypnotized fashion.
“I’m the one who made this mistake. I’m responsible for it, not you””
Jorghenson lowered his head.
Then he buried his face in his friend's shoulder, using it to muffle his own tears.
Eventually, he looked back up again.
“I haven’t finished checking all the rubble yet” he said.
“The intel.
“Go” replied Ortega.