A pretty young Thai girl in a short, skin-tight silk dress slides uninvited, but most welcome into my lap. She drapes her soft, slender arms around my neck, and with pleading dark eyes peering into mine she implores, "You buy me drink, GI? You numbah one GI! You buy me drink?" Well, how does one say "No" to that? The beer and liquor flow freely as water. I shout to the waitress, "Sook! Bring another round for me and my friends here! Lay-o, lay-o!" (Quickly, quickly!)

A drinking song breaks out at a table in one corner of the room and is soon taken up by all the patrons of the bar. Friendship and camaraderie abound here. In this place, at once so foreign, yet so familiar, ten thousand miles from home, here in the "land of smiles" all is well with the world for this moment in time. And this moment in time is all we have, for we are at war. There are no guarantees on tomorrow. Tomorrow is an eternity away. Home and family and loved ones are an eternity away. For now, here is our home; here is our family. And for now, the business of war is forgotten. All is happiness. All is brotherhood and friendship and celebration. We will make the most of it!

Then, a low rumbling intrudes upon our revelry. It is more of a vibration than a sound - pressure waves that you feel, like those of the ominous distant thunder of an approaching storm, when it rattles the walls of your chest. It shakes the foundation of the building, and with it, the very foundations of our souls. It rises up from the floor below, through the walls of the building, up and out of the roof. "What was that!?" The room suddenly falls hushed, silent, except for the harsh clicking sound of the strobe.

"Snap!.... Snap!.... Snap!.... Snap!...."

With metronome precision, it freezes in stark, surreal light, the startled, wide-eyed, ghostly expressions of the patrons of the bar. The world has stopped, suspended in time! Men who were stinking drunk an instant before are suddenly stone cold sober. Every ear is poised, waiting, listening, straining, aching for another clue.

"Snap!.... Snap!.... Snap!.... Snap!...."

Then, as of one mind, finally galvanized to action, we rush to the window and press faces against the glass to see what is going on outside. In the confusion of the street below, emergency vehicles, sirens screaming, hasten to aid at the scene of some unknown disaster. Off in the distance, from the direction of the air base, through the blackness of the night comes the unmistakable sound of small arms fire. I count four shots in rapid succession.

"Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop!"

Is that the sound of an AK-47!? We know of course that it is, for it is a sound some of us have heard before. Instantly comes the collective realization of what is happening, and a chill grips our hearts..... Sapper attack!

Suddenly, I am awake and in my own bed. My wife of twenty eight years lies beside me in peaceful slumber, unaware of the imminent threat. Quick! I have to waken her and warn her of the danger! Then dawns the incipient awareness it was all only a dream. Was this a ghost from the past, come back to visit me in the night after more than thirty years of absence? Was this some long suppressed memory? Or was this fragment of a dream, this night visitor, just a creation of my imagination? Try as I might, I cannot tell for sure. There is so much I can’t seem to remember from that other lifetime. Do I even want to remember?