The Night Life

       During those two weeks the basic routine was simple.  They'd sleep away the daylight hours, or try to sleep, then at dusk they'd put on their gear and move out single file into the dark.  Always a heavy cloud cover.  No moon and no stars.  It was the purest black you could imagine, Sanders said, the kind of clock-stopping black that God must've had in mind when he sat down to invent blackness.  It made your eyeballs ache.  You'd shake your head and blink, except you couldn't even tell you were blinking, the blackness didn't change.  So  pretty soon you'd get jumpy.  Your nerves would go.  You'd start to worry about getting cut off from the rest of the unit---alone, you'd reach out and try to touch the guy in front of you, groping for his shirt, hoping to Christ he was still there.  It made for some bad dreams.  Dave Jensen popped special vitamins high in carotene.  Lieutenant Cross popped NoDoz.  Henry Dobbins and Norman Bowker even rigged up a safety line between them, a long piece of string tied to their belts.  The whole platoon felt the impact.
Thank you,  Tim O'Brien
f. The Things They Carried, 1990