Squad D

Squad D is the title of a short story written by Stephen King in the late 1970s. It was published in early 2019 by the US publisher Cemetery Dance Publications in the 8th volume of the Shivers anthology series. A German translation was also published in 2019 as part of the Cemetery Dance Germany series (Volume 2) by Buchheim Verlag Grimma.

content

Josh Bortman is the only member of Squad D ( troop D ), which is still alive. He was in the hospital when the other nine members of the squad fell victim to a trap by the Viet Cong. Eaten by feelings of guilt, he sends the bereaved a photo taken by himself, which shows the troop and thus his best and only friends.

Three years later, Dale Clewson - father of the dead Billy from Squad D - desperately tries to contact Josh after he suddenly appears in the photo. As it turns out during a phone call with Josh's father, Josh took his own life and got back together with his friends, both in death and in the photo.

Interesting facts and web link

• The story was rejected by Harlan Ellison , who found it not good enough for his anthology Dangerous Visions III .
• King later reprocessed the idea of ​​a survivor's guilt in Left Behind .
• King dealt with the American trauma in Vietnam in his work Atlantis .
• The idea of ​​changing images is central to many of King's works, for example in the short story Stationary Bike (Eng. The Hometrainer ) and the novel Wahn .
• Detailed table of contents in KingWiki