When The Tigers Broke Free – The Junction

At the army base, Rex joined a boot camp full of cherry boys. Baby bulls scared shitless and who could blame them. Rex gazed about, studying the crew cuts and peach-fuzz all around him.

Others glanced too. Countless eyeballs locked in tangos through space. Some were shifty, others huffed out, the rest parked in a daze. Each one knew they were no longer on Smoke Bomb Beach or Firecracker Hill with their buddies back home.

The first thing the drill instructors told Rex was to wipe the word homicide from his brain. You’re a killer son, not a murderer. Then came the hate. To resent Charlie with all of Rex’s might and will.

The gunnery sergeants demonstrated how to off that jungle demon with hunting knives, bullets, and their bayonets. If the boys should ever run low or out of ammo, their bare hands, and fingernails. Choke holds judo chops and gouging out eyeballs to win those Viking rumbles.

Charlie’s the devil incarnate. A soulless creature with the eyes of a shark. A demon rat with no remorse who worships death. Charlie relishes the slow kill. Born to capture and torture GIs. Dumps the brothers into vats of kerosene and tubs of starving vermin.

There are no holy spirits waiting for Charlie when he bites the dust. On the days that bastard winks out, he burns off in a cloud of smoke. There’s no vacancy on the other side for Charlie. At this end of the rainbow, it’s a cheap funeral and that’s all. He’s worth nothing more and don’t forget it.

The fellas went on to conquer timber, dunes, and swampland. Guns blazing, bayonets spearing those spiritless bodies. Sucking the life from those dark and cold-blooded eyes.

Boys to men full of spitfire, yearning for theater. The playing field to dispatch Charlie to the lava pits of hell.

The Man loaded the boys into choppers and dropped them in rugged terrains. The drills to make them devil-like. From house cats to hellcats. The metal to hunt, fight, kill, and repeat the process.

The boys discovered they were built for survival after all. Hidden superpowers the elements and sarges forced them to tap.

The killer bees captured outposts, fortified bunkers, and pillboxes. Whatever battle games the brass concocted, the warriors aced their exams. The next phases could have been the craters and canyons of the moon.

Nothing odd or strange enough to spook the born to kill. A violence gifted from another world. Selling their souls and humanity to hunt, surround, and diffuse the enemy.

After basic training, the regiment graduated. No longer grunts nor maggots. On this day they became soldiers.

The boss men herded Rex and his rifle company onto a cargo jet. Spiffed up in their best tiger camo, full of animosity and fire. The regiment marched a lopsided plank where Rex and his brothers entered the belly of the transport.

The boys carried parachute packs, M-16s, and their letters from home. A mess kit, shovels, rations, and their quest to hunt and kill. They humped it all.

Once the pilot found the sweet spot he tilted the craft into a straight path. Above the clouds, Tiger Division cut a swath through the dark, quiet, and rarefied air. Up in the ozone, one with the angels hung Rex and his rifle company.

Rex stood with Gordon, his buddy from basic. The rest crowded around them. The gunnery sarge reminded the regiment they were Tigers. Real men with nothing to fear.

It wasn’t all lions breath and brimstone. The sarge could be upfront and sobering as well. He guaranteed that Charlie and his gunfire would send some of them to parts unknown. The outer limits beyond space, time, and Eden.

In the same breath, the sarge spilled more mantras. The Boys of Company B — Brotherhood, would march through infinity. A family crest that would outlive them all.

The first time Rex met Gordon, he wondered how this short, skinny kid with soda pop specs ended up on this trip. Gordon arrived at basic through a draft notice and assigned to the regiment with the rest of them. Another grunt and number. A bag of bones destined for target material and jungle mayhem.

Not only did Gordon sport the Poindexter image, but the runty kid was also the real deal — a brainiac. The kid spoke the enemy’s language. He could read and write it too. Why was this talent being wasted on the battlefield?

Gordon should have been shipped off to the Pentagon to help with intelligence. A cushy office job with bennies and a pension. A suit, not a soldier.

The cockpit carved another angle, shaking Rex from his thoughts. That’s when the sarge barked at the fellas to get their shit together and their wits in gear. Reminding Tiger Division it had a war to fight. No longer welcome between the clouds and ozone layer, Rex focused on the jungle below.

The pit in Rex’s stomach began to gel. He wondered if the others felt the same. No more Boy Scouts, Little League, and senior proms. They were Tigers and the generals’ kerfuffle was on.

The division lined up as the rear hatch opened revealing a lead wall flecked with metallic stars. One by one, each paratrooper stepped up to the edge, varnished with cobalt.

Each Tiger gifted a glance from the sarge. The sarge wished each Tiger well as they reached the lip before leaping into forever. Once it was Rex’s turn, he stepped up and paused.

Rex received a deep and loving stare. Not the riff from a father, friend, or bother. Something else, yet in between and real. An act reserved for an uncle to his nephew thought Rex.

The stern and stoic maniac who always rode the boys and chewed them out. The monster doing his job and serving his country. For the first time, Rex realized there was no crime in the sarge’s pep talks and warped psychology.

Rex looked back into the sarge’s eyes and did the unthinkable. He thanked the old and surly bastard for looking out for them. Not that Rex ever wanted to be here, doing the Man’s dirty work. What the heck?

Since Rex reported, he’d need to raise that metal to reach the other side. No matter where it resided or done to his mind when or where it spits him out.

In moments, the cargo jet and gunnery were behind Rex for good. Rex joined his brothers wafting in their descent. Beneath them, the jungle, and the shit. Charlie too. They knew the bugger was there, crouched in the reeds down below.

Hunched in the bamboo, prowling the rice paddies like a black mamba. The crackle of enemy gunfire broke the silence. Rex grabbed his parachute straps, twisting himself to dodge the VC bullets.

Tiny explosions in a starburst. Flashes of amber and orange. As Rex inched closer and his target evolving, he could smell the gunsmoke. The humid and swampy jungle clutched it all. The breath and horror of battle.

It’s on now, boys. Rex couldn’t decide if he wanted to remain in the air or hit the ground. He could hear Charlie’s bullets whizzing past him. A few slashed the nylon dome of his chute, making a whipping noise.

Other shots by the demons struck their targets. Rex’s blood brothers, picked off as they floated. Struck dead in mid-air before landing. Their listless bodies, lumped in heaps at touch down, unable to show life. Unable to rise and run, like the war games with your playmates back home.

All this mess from the bad kids. Babies once, like the kids from Tiger Division. All grown up and hardened by warfare. Making their bones, getting patched. Ribbons, medals, and ‘atta boys’ from their staff sarges. The enemy stripes, brass, and unit leaders coaching their cubs.

Once his combat boots smacked the ground, Rex sprung into the next gears of his mission. Their plot to aim for solid ground and dash through the fog. To reach that jungle base and their next commandment post.

On jungle soil, the survivors raced through a blizzard of bullets. Rex heard his brother scouts being hurt and taken out as they screamed and fell to the turf.

The chiefs instructed the soldiers to leave their fallen brothers behind. The recon teams would scour the zones, locating the wounded and the slain.

Rex and the gang kept running, waiting to fall into the arms and gurneys of the medics. Then the inevitable: the belly of those vaunted body bags.

The images in Rex’s mind morphed into a film strip. A twisted newsreel and movie scene. The one with the body-bagged Rex being loaded into an air vac. Rex imagined the chopper scaling the sky before melting away in the ozone on his ride to heaven. The folded flag handed to his mother at his grave.

Rex and his brothers dashed through the jungle. The good guys lighting up the fields with giant flares, shaped like sticks of dynamite. Airborne spotlights pointing Tiger Division to its encampment.

A fleet of Air Force jets screamed overhead. Their drums of napalm charging up the jungle. Brothers from another company providing cover with flame sticks and Howitzers. The give and take of invasion, cover, and survival.

The master plan to snake-charm Charlie from the swamps by jumping on the newbies. The strategies and politics of battle. Another angle of the war game.

The fear and urgency made Rex run faster. They all did. Each Tiger waiting for their turn. Their bullets from Charlie and to be offed for good.

Rex’s body became a blob of adrenaline filling up and aiming to blow open. The fluid continued to swell and propel Rex forward, his hips full of rocket fuel.

The Tigers reached the perimeter of their mother ship, sucked into the safety and cover. Outgunned, Charlie backed down. Dispatched to the depths and jungle’s mystery. Back to his catacombs to regroup and play phantom.

Rex searched his band of brothers for Gordon. That scrawny runt with the soda pop specs and brain from another solar system. Gordon made it. The ones who washed up and survived would never forget this night nor ever talk about it.

Too tired and sea-worn to be scared, the Tigers went to their bunks for shuteye. By the first rays of dawn, the bugles sounded. Charlie was gone for now, back in hiding and conceding the daylight.