Ripples

Staff Sergeant Benjamin Alexander Josephson leaned heavily back against the trunk of a small comphor tree on the outer edge of a small grove of trees and breathed a deep sigh of relief as he realized that they were all fairly superficial; then he sat surveying the bodies of the troops, enemy and ally alike, and the scars left on the surrounding landscape in the aftermath of the horrifying battle which had just ended and at the distant flat, green surface of the Ia Drang Valley beyond.

Amidst the quiescent calm and tomblike silence that always seems to follow violent conflict and, as the fear and horror which had engulfed the very fiber of his being during the bloody engagement began to wane, his mind drifted and he began to focus on the land itself.

Even through the carnage and remaining smoke plumes and few small scattered fires sparked by expended ordnance of both large and small arms fire he could not help but notice the underlying splendor of this war-torn nation. Far in the distance a high, ominously dark mass of stratocumulus clouds crept slowly across the horizon signaling the approach of a spring rainstorm.

Despite the war this was, he thought, a truly beautiful country and as he began to relax he leaned back further, closed his eyes, and turned his face slightly skyward to feel the sun on his skin. The warmth and natural resplendence of this place with its huge open skies and myriad varieties of vegetation could, despite the horrors of war, bring about feelings of peace, serenity, and even wonderment if one took advantage of the rare, fleeting, and precious moments the war allowed to truly appreciate its magnificence and diversity.

Perhaps it was the greenness of the place with shades of color running the entire spectrum from the faint tea-green tint of the elephant and cogon grasses to the deep rich viridian and hunter-green tones of iron-wood, oak, teak, mahogany, banyan, and comphor trees, which comprised the multi-canopied and limestone mountain forests that covered so much of this ancient and beautiful land that reminded him of his home in his native North Carolina.

Ref: associatedcontent.com