Matthew Shorty

After seeing the naval officer, Jack and his crew stopped coming toward me. I was relieved because I thought I would be killed. I also thought about the deaths of Simon and Piggy and the happiness of being saved, and I just sat down on the beach, sobbing. The naval officer picked me up and brought me to the chopper they had come in. He tried calming me down by asking, "What's your name, son?"

"My name is Ralph," I answered.

"Now tell me from the beginning what happened?" he asked seriously.

As I wiped the tears off my face, I told the officer, "It began when all of a sudden the engine on our plane started to fail and smoke and oil were blowing out of two little holes."

"What were these holes made by?" the officer said.

"They were made by shots from a fighter plane," I replied. "Then we started to descend from the air. The boys were panicking, and I tried to calm them down and tell them to prepare to crash. Then we crashed right into the ocean. The boys scrambled to get out the door and when everyone was out a life boat was launched."

"So that's how you guys got here. What else happened?" asked the officer.

"After landing on the island we organized ourselves. There was a hunting group, a fire group, a fruit-gathering group, and a shelter-building group. At first it was fine. The organizations were cooperating. But everything started to fall apart," I told the officer.

"What happened next?" asked the officer.

"Then another group was formed from the hunting group. This group was led by Jack and had their shelter on the other side of the island. They called it Castle Rock. Jack's group would always go hunting. Once they invited us to go eat with them at their place. After eating with Jack's group, Piggy and the littleuns and I went back to our shelters. During the night Jack's group came to our shelter to steal Piggy's glasses. The next day Piggy and I went back to Castle Rock. We tried persuading Jack to give back Piggy's glasses, then all of sudden Roger pushed a big boulder over the cliff and it fell on Piggy. Piggy died instantly, then Jack, Roger and the other boys started to hit me with rocks, so I ran away from them. They were gonna kill me too till I stumbled across you," I told the officer.

The officer then told his men to take Jack and his boys to a different chopper. I rode with the officer in his chopper. As we left I saw the island burning up in flames. I sat in the chopper thinking of all the damage we had done to the island. And I thought of home.

When we got home they rushed me to the hospital. I was met there by my parents. They were so overwhelmed to see me they started crying.

I stayed in the hospital for one week, and just before I got out a military legal counsellor came to my room and introduced himself to me. He then asked me if I wanted to talk to him about how Jack and his boys had killed Piggy and Simon on the island. He told me I could put the boys away for killing the other two.

Years afterward, I had nightmares about what had happened. To make me feel better I would visit the graves of Piggy and Simon. Much later in my older years I saw Jack, and we had a short coversation. But after we talked to each other we went our different ways. 1 was traveling to my daughter's place to see my little granddaughter. He was on his way to see his granddaughter.

Even to this day, I still have terrible nightmares about all that happened.