Page "fiction" Paragraph 70

`` But when it comes to war, the Colonel knows what it is and Jeff doesn't.

Mr. Christiansen knows that a soldier will get the Distinguished Service Medal for conduct that would land him in prison for life or the electric chair as a civilian.

He had a mean, unbroken sheer bastard in his outfit, and someone invented the name Trig for him.

That's to say, he was trigger happy.

He'd shoot at anything if it was the rear end of a horse or his own sentry.

He was a wiry, inscrutable, silent country boy from the red clay of rural Alabama, and he spoke with the broad drawl that others normally make fun of.

But not in front of Trig.

I heard of some that tried it back in the States, and he'd knock them clear across the room.

There'd been a pretty bad incident back at the Marine base.

A New York kid, a refugee from one of the Harlem gangs, made fun of Trig's accent, and drew a knife.

Before the fight was over, the Harlem boy had a concussion and Trig was cut up badly.

They caught Trig stealing liquor from the officers' mess, and he got a couple of girls in trouble.

The fear of punishment just didn't bother him.

It wasn't there.

It was left out of him at birth.

This is why he made such a magnificent soldier.

He wasn't troubled with the ordinary, rank-and-file fear that overcomes and paralyzes and sends individual soldiers and whole companies under fire running in panic.

It just didn't occur to Trig that anything serious would happen to him.

Do you get the picture of the kind of fellow he was ''??