That night Jorghenson was already back in the U.S. He was home in the 'real world' as they liked to call it. It was the middle of the night however, and although he should have been fast asleep he was actually wide-awake. He was making his way down the upstairs corridor which lead out of his room.
Something just didn’t feel right.
There was something definitely wrong at home that night.
In fact while Jorghenson was wondering along the corridor by himself, still in the dark, he heard his wife Mary’s voice suddenly break the silence.
“You’re only having a nightmare Carl,” she said.
Jorgenson jumped back startled, trying to catch a glimpse of something, anything but that voice seemed only to be in his head.
“..and it is not over yet either”
Jorgenson turned towards his daughter's room, and walked through the doorway.
The little girl was sleeping in her cradle without a blanket. The room was full of flying insects and the little girl laid still.
Jorgenson moved closer to the crib, waving the flying pests away with his hands but to no avail.
Eventually, he reached her.
Looking down into the crib he saw that the baby’s skin was grey in colour, seemed to have been pulled out of shape and as looked coarse as parchment.
She continued to lay there motionless, almost frozen like but most startling of all, was that she wasn’t breathing.
It was obvious that she’d been dead for a while, so long in fact that her once chubby cheeks now retracted inwards and the flies were laying their eggs there.
*
Jorghenson woke with a start and found himself lying across his mate's camp bed face down.
He was hot and completely covered in sweat, almost feverish.
It was the middle of the night in Dak To and he was still in Vietnam.