Friday, February 14, 2014
Sergeant Wilke from "Dark Heart of Walter E. Kurtz"
Sergeant Wilke was a grizzled, yet deceptively refined,
veteran of the Korean War who has been in Southeast Asia since the
mid-1950s. He is an expert in the
field of guerrilla warfare, and well-versed in several Southeast Asian
languages, including several dialects spoken by the many montagnard tribes
living in Cambodia and Vietnam. In
the early 1960s Wilke played a major role in a U.S. funded program to arm and
train these indigenous peoples to fight the Vietminh, but has since been
discontinued, at least officially.
Walter was intrigued by Wilke and spent a lot of time studying him as they both tried to pass the initial long, hot, seemingly endless moments of inactivity, and was fascinated by Wilke’s animal-like mannerisms and instincts. He walked in and out of the jungle as quiet as a ghost and seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, catching Walter staring at him from behind on several occasions. Sudden sounds emanating from the jungle could not catch Wilke unprepared for fight-or-flight no matter how quickly they erupted. Years of constantly living only seconds away from death by way of man, nature, and beast, has sharpened his senses like that of fine cutlery, putting him in perfect harmony with the jungle.
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