To Sleep; Perchance To Dream

Sleep… sleep… sleep. The ground was rock hard, the nights in some seasons were cold, which was crazy because the days were so damned hot. At other times the nights were just as hot as the days and too hot to sleep. Thus, the ability to sleep under standard conditions in Vietnam, was an enviable talent… that I possessed.

I could sleep, and I loved to sleep. Not only could I sleep , but I could dream. Sleep took me out of the war, and dreams took me home to the arms of any one of the girls I had known in the previous five years. I could sleep through almost anything. The other guys had trouble sleeping because of the cold, the rain, the heat, the mortars, the mosquitoes; but I had no such problems. Even the mosquitoes didn’t bite me. To this day mosquitoes do not bite me. I guess I was lucky.

Once I went to sleep, upon the return of my company to our base camp, after being lost in the jungle for three days. I was so sleepy that I slept through an enemy attack on our base camp. After the attack was over, someone looked around and saw that I was still sleeping. That was really embarrassing, but I was very sleepy. That was the only time I slept through a firefight. I never slept when I was supposed to be awake. For example I never could sleep while on guard duty, it was too dangerous. But I did love to sleep… still do.