How Can You Mend This Purple Heart Read Online Free Page B

windows, framing the wall directly across from us. Ski lay defiant in the early morning light. A Star of David pendant rested against his neck just below his right ear, propped up by the dull gray beaded chain of his dog tags.
    â€œDyou look like sheet,” he said to me with a wry grin.
    â€œWhat?” I asked, thinking he was speaking a foreign language.
    â€œDyou look like sheet,” he grinned harder.
    â€œYou don’t look much better,” I smiled back.
    A black and green bulldog tattoo with the inscription “USMC,” arched below a pair of boxing gloves, was peeking out of the short sleeve of Ski’s blue and white-striped pajama top. IV tubes, bulging up into a half loop on both forearms, disappeared under a ribbon of tape. Small blackish-red bruises marked the needle punctures.
    Chalky white plaster casts completely covered his legs from his toes to his torso. The top edges of the hardened shells had already rubbed blisters high on his thighs. A metal crossbar, wrapped in plaster, bridged a one-foot span between his legs. The crossbar was molded into the casts at each knee, ensuring the impossibility of leg movement in any direction.
    A catheter tube slid from under the sheet, snaked over the cast of his right leg, and emptied a cloudy, reddish liquid into the plastic bag strapped to the bed frame. The catheter tube was an obvious visible blessing that things could have been a lot worse.
    Less than five weeks ago, Ski had been standing and squatting, running, crawling, sitting, and laughing. A couple of months ago, he had celebrated his nineteenth birthday. Just over a year ago, he was dancing at a senior prom.
    I hesitated, but I needed to know. “What happened?”
    The grin suddenly pulled down on his mouth and he wet his lips.
    â€œMaybe I shouldn’t have…”
    â€œEet’s okay. Eet’s just that my leg…eet burns sometimes. Eet was a land mine. My buddy tripped dthe wire. He took most of dthe blast…fucking gooks.”
    Both of Ski’s legs had been ripped and shredded from the spraying shrapnel. His buddy died instantly.
    Ski lay quiet for several minutes, a hard frown creased his face, his eyes squeezed down tight, just like the face on the bulldog tattoo. The lanky kid lying next to me with the hard jaw and the strange accent, who had nearly bled to death in a jungle ten thousand miles away, already seemed like a good friend.
    â€œWhere’re you from?” I asked.
    â€œDnew Jersey,” he stammered.
    â€œWhere?”
    â€œDenew dJersey,” he said again, pushing on the words.
    Even a farm kid from southwest Missouri would know he wasn’t from New Jersey. Anyone who had ever watched television knew it was New Joisey, just like those guys on the Bowery Boys said it.
    â€œNo really, where’re you from?”
    â€œI was born in dRussia,” he said proudly. He pulled at the chain around his neck and held the Star of David between his thumb and finger. “And I’m Jewish, too.”
    It was the first time I had ever seen a real Star of David, and now I was certain the morphine was making him delirious. Anyone who had ever been to one of Preacher Cunningham’s Sunday evening revival meetings at the Freewill Independent Baptist Church knew Jews only lived in Jerusalem or New York City.
    A Navy corpsman in a crisp, white uniform stepped between us and checked the IV lines dripping life support into each of Ski’s arms: icy-cold blood into his left arm, nutrients and antibiotics into his right.
    â€œOkay, Ski, let’s see that bulldog,” the corpsman interrupted. “This is going to hurt me more than it is you,” he smiled as he twirled a freshly loaded syringe between his fingers. “Okay, where should the dog get it? How about between the eyes this time?” he said as he took aim at the bulldog tattoo.
    â€œI don’t care. Just geeve eet to me.”
    He put the needle right