"Hold this to your eye." I advised a young boy of about fourteen or fifteen. He did what I told him and held the cloth to his missing eye. I felt bad for him. In the short time I'd gotten to know him I'd figured out that he was orphaned two weeks earlier in a Viet-Cong raid. He was the oldest boy in his family and had taken on the role as father to his four younger siblings.

"Thank you." The boy said with tears as he hugged his unclothed little sister to him. He kissed her fragile brow. I decided to give them privacy and stood up. I looked around the main square of the town of Chi.

I heard Peter's laugh before I saw him. When I did catch sight of my friend I saw that he and Micky were entertaining a group of children.

Peter had four kids hanging off of him. Two hugging his legs and two hanging from his arms. Another boy ran up and jumped onto Pete's back from behind. Peter stumbled but caught himself. He tried to his best to walk under the weight of the children.

I smirked and shook my head.

"Where did it go?" I overheard Micky asking a group of children.

"Where?! Where?!" The children asked in earnest. They searched Micky's hands and turned out all his pockets. None of them could find the object Micky was using for magic. Just before they all gave up my new friend ran his hand through the long hair of a young girl who'd been pushed to the ground by the older kids. He made like he'd taken a coin from the tangled mess and the children oo-ed and ahh-ed.

My friend handed the coin to the little girl, gave a goofy smile, and stood back up.

"Again! Again!" The children jumped up and down and cheered. They shouted at Micky in Vietnamese, and though we could not understand what they said, we knew by their faces and voiced that they were excited.

"No. I'm sorry." Micky said over the loud voices of the children.

"Why no?" And boy asked.

"I'm broke!" Micky laughed.

The children began to examine him. They prodded and pulled on him. It made him laugh when they began to see if he really was broken.

"Mr. Soldier, you are not broke." A disappointed teen sighed.

"No. I have to more money." Micky explained.

The children expressed their dismay and began to disperse. A few kids stayed with him and followed him as he walked over to me. He still had a gigantic smile painted on his face.

"Mr. Soldier, will you come back next day?" A seven year old boy asked.

Micky nodded. "I'll try and come back tomorrow." He reached down and patted the boy's hair. The boy laughed and ran off down the road. Another little boy around the age of three or four stood at Micky's feet and watched him as his acknowledged me.

"These kids are great!" Micky gushed. He reached down and picked up the three year old.

"I can tell you're having fun with them." I said as I reached over to tickle the little boy. He didn't even smile at me. He just kept staring at me with an expressionless face. His eyes though, held the sadness that a child of his age should never know.

"Where uh, where's Davy?" I asked. I was trying my hardest to keep tabs on the three of them as best I could. I wanted to make sure that they were safe at all times.

"I don't know." Micky looked around him, into the crowd of soldiers and civilians. "Oh, there he is!" Mick pointed to our friend tending to a girl about his age. We watched him in silence a moment. At first glance he seemed to be tending a wound, but as we watched we saw that he was caressing her face. She batted her eye lashes at him and he smiled mischievously before kissing her gently.

Micky and I chuckled.

"Looks like David's found himself a girl." I laughed.

"She's pretty, I'll give him that." Micky nodded.

A new wave of children had gathered slowly around Micky once more. He turned his attention to them as they begged for him to tell them a story. He gave in with a laugh and sat in the middle of the street with the children sitting around him.

I walked away to find Peter. When I caught up with him he was helping a family find their belongings in the ruble that still lined the streets. I let him know I was there to help and went away digging through the mess. I would raise up an object every now and again to see if it belonged to the family. More often than not I put it back in the pile.

The rest of the day was sent helping and perfecting our relationships with the villagers of Chi. By sundown every soldier was back in camp and in their bunk, getting ready to go to sleep.

"So David, who was that girl?" Peter asked with a smile.

"Why do you care?" Davy grinned and threw his shoe at Pete.

"It looked like you two were getting quite friendly!" I winked.

"Yeah..." Davy blushed. He laughed as he thought of her and then curled up into his bed.

"Goodnight yall." I sighed.

"Good night, Mike." Micky said.

"Night man." Peter said from above me. He was still smiling.

I turned out the light and said my nightly prayers. I fell asleep to the sound of Micky fiddling with his gun, and flinching at every little sound. Before I drifted off I said a prayer for him. He was a symbol of hope to so many children in Chi, but he himself was still a frightened child.

bivwC