IF THIS IS WINTER, Hilda thought, I am glad I took my leave in August. This should have been the coolest month, and the air temperatures were nothing like the heat wave she had left behind. But the hot winds from the Kalahari Desert had started in July instead of September this year, and the sun beat down relentlessly. Continue reading
NURSE CORPS CAPTAIN HILDA PAISLEY felt her legs wobble as she walked to the women’s locker room. It had been a long shift in the emergency room: four auto accidents, a fight on the playground at Vogelweh Elementary, and a suicide attempt that almost was successful. Still not as bad as a day in Bar Kunar, she reminded herself.[i]
TRYING TO BLOCK OUT THE SOUND OF MORTARS exploding ever closer, Hilda focused on the bleeding wound in front of her. She held her finger on the femoral artery while the surgeon sewed the severed vessel together then began to clean and close the wound. She shifted to the pressure point just outside the open wound. In another ten minutes, the wounded soldier might stand a chance of keeping his leg and his life.
“What are you going to do now, Tom?” Major Ricardo Sanchez asked his old friend. They stood in the sunshine on the lawn, holding their champagne flutes. Beyond the tent and its tables of canapes and heavier foods, the guests’ children had organized an enthusiastic game of tag with much squealing and more than a few grass stains on dresses and pants. Continue reading
HILDA PAISLEY rose when her name was called, and joined the line of graduating students below the stage. Like most of them, she wore a uniform under her gown. Almost all her “classmates” had travelled from somewhere else to Munich for this graduation ceremony. Continue reading
JT Hine 