section and Four Six waited until One Six had returned from their sally to the south and then, joining forces with them, began moving toward our new NDP.
Shortly before closing Two Six’s position, we heard the familiar report of a claymore’s detonation, followed by the rhythmic pounding of an M-60 machine gun on the mountain towering to the left of us. And we felt good.
“Three Six bagged ’em!”
“The sun shines today.”
“Cloverleaves suck! The good hunting’s always in the high country.”
It was not that we were jubilant about the sudden violent demise of what I would moments later learn to be three NVA soldiers—three fellow human beings. It was simply that we had scored. That we had succeeded in doing what we had been trained and sent to Vietnam to do. The death of enemy soldiers at our hands quite simply produced a good feeling, a feeling of exhilaration much like that experienced when one’s high school football team scores a touchdown. In this sense, we modern ethren or Genghis Khan’s warriors.
After joining Two Six in our new NDP, I pulled MacCarty aside. “Hey, Mac, how about putting your trick or treat, say, a squad or so, on the 506 ‘bout where Wester scratched those five NVA night ‘fore last? I mean, they’re obviously traveling the route, and we might get lucky again.”
“506? Sir, that’s nearly two klicks out. Quite a ways for a single squad to set up.”
“Well, shit, Mac, beef it up a bit. ‘Nother M-60, couple M-79s. Your call, but I want an ambush on the 506 tonight, okay?”
“Okay, Six. I’ll take a squad plus. We’ll leave the perimeter shortly after…”
“Mac, I don’t want you going. Hey, you’ll be leaving us in a day or two, and you’ve got good squad leaders —Baker’s one of the best. You gotta give ’em room to grow, and they can’t do that with you looking over their shoulder all the time.”
He looked at me a moment, amused, and then smiled and said, “Right, sir. Kind of like you letting me grow while looking over my shoulder during our two-squad helicopterless false extraction, right?”
“Uh… that was different,” I protested, blushing a little. “Mean, I was but a casual observer on that venture. Just… learning the ins and outs of a stay-behind. You know, being new on board and all, I just wanted to…”
“Or during our claymore forays up the mountain, huh?” He interrupted, grinning broadly.
“Well, shit, Mac, I can hardly sit on my ass with Four Six in the NDP all day, now, can I?”
“No, sir, you can’t, and I copy you loud and clear,” he said, still smiling. “And Baker it’ll be, and he’ll be augmented accordingly.”
In the wee hours of the following morning, I was awakened by a very concerned Lieutenant MacCarty.
“Sergeant Baker’s in a bind, sir. Says he’s got what he thinks is a company of NVA on the 506 where it intersects with that secondary northsouth trail we traveled the other night. Says they’re just sitting there, like they’re assembling or something.”
“Is he in contact?” I said, hurriedly unwrapping myself from my poncho liner and getting to my feet.
“No, sir. Says they’re not in his kill zone, and there’s too many of ’em for him to take on anyway. But he’s got ’em on the starlight scope.”
Turning to Anderson, who was on radio watch, I loudly whispered, “Andy, go to Two Six’s push.”
“They’re not in a posture to do much talking, sir,” MacCarty commented.
“Understand that, Mac,” I remarked, “but if he’s got a company out there, and he can’t take ’em on, we gotta get some red leg on ’em.
Which means Baker and his people are gonna have to move.”
He nodded and then took Anderson’s extended handset, whispering into it,
“Two Six Tango, this is Six. We’re gonna be bringing red leg in on your target. If you can move, key your handset twice. Over.”
We listened as the handset’s rushing noise was interrupted by two distinct breaks.
“Okay, Tango, I copy. Now I understand that north-south trail is the same one we used when we left the red line the other night. If so, give us another two clicks and then haul ass and go for cover. Call me as soon as it’s safe to do so. Over.”
Again the handset’s rushing sound was twice broken by Baker keying his push-to-talk.
“I’ll get Brightly,” the Bull, now also up, offered.
Lieutenant Brightly quickly plotted the grid and requested his fire mission. Moments later he said, in a louder voice than he should have,
“Hot damn! They’re gonna put a TOT on ’em! Been out here better than five months and ain’t never seen a TOT fired.” Time on target is a mission in which artillery fires from several firing locations are simultaneously massed on a single target.
“Uh… it’ll take ’em a few minutes to crank it up, Boss,” he added, turning to me.
“And it’ll take Baker longer than that to clear the area. There ain’t gonna be no TOT until he and his soldiers are safely tucked in somewhere,” Sergeant Sullivan remarked, leaving little doubt in anyone’s mind that he meant what he said.
“I copy that, Top,” Slim Brightly said. “Not to worry. We don’t shoot at the good guys.”
“Probably ought to wait ’til Baker’s a good six, seven hundred meters up range, huh?” MacCarty remarked more than asked.
“A klick would be better. Just to be on the safe side,” the Bull said.
They’re even bringing an ARVN battery in on it,” Brightly said, his handset to his ear.
“Better make that two klicks,” the Bull said dryly.
“Hell, Top, if they fall back two klicks, they’ll be sitting with us in the NDP!” Mac said.
“You’re right, Lieutenant. And I don’t know ‘bout the rest of you, but I’m gonna sit this one out in my hole,” Sullivan grunted.
A short while later, Sergeant Baker informed us that he and his patrol were out of harm’s way, having retired to a ravine a klick or so south of the 506. Moments later, Slim Brightly, smiling broadly, gave a thumbs up: “Rounds on the way!”
Then we heard the shrieking, screaming sound of artillery projectiles passing over our heads from the southeast. Suddenly the northern horizon lit up in multiple vermilion-and-white flashes, and moments later we heard the crashing sound of the projectiles exploding on Route 506. The earsplitting display of firepower lasted several minutes.
“Divarty requests some feedback on the mission, sir,” Slim said after it was over. “Wants to hear about piles of dead gooks out there.”
“Well, ain’t nobody going back there tonight,” I replied. “Tell ’em we’ll check it out at first light.”
Baker and his patrol did just that but found nothing. No dead bodies, no weapons, no blood trails—nothing. And neither divarty nor battalion was happy about that.
That night, after the log bird had departed and while the Bull and I were in idle conversation, we received a call from Colonel Lich’s executive officer.
“Comanche Six, this Arizona Five. Uh… we’re a little concerned ‘bout last night’s fire mission. You know, large expenditure of class V with nothing to show for it. Request that you try to ascertain whether or not there was actually a large enemy force out there or whether your people might have just been seeing ghosts.”
Why, you pompous, chair-warming sonofabitch!
“This is Comanche Six. Be advised that I am well acquainted with the soldier in charge of that patrol, and if he says there was enemy out there, there was enemy out there. And that’s all the ‘ascertaining’ I intend to do,” I said heatedly. “How copy?”
“Roger, I copy. Don’t know if that’ll satisfy higher, but I’ll pass it along.”
“You believe that, Top?” I said angrily. “Who the fuck is he to question one of my soldiers? And who the fuck made him keeper of Uncle Sam’s artillery stockpiles?”
“Now, take it easy, sir,” the Bull said, trying to calm me—the two of us reversing roles on this occasion. “The XO’s all right. Sometimes can’t find his ass with both hands, but he’s all right. Probably just trying to answer the divarty commander’s mail. Don’t let ’em get to YOU.”
“But shit, Top, what’s the great concern? I’ll bet they routinely fire these missions at a bunch of old tank hulls back at Sill trying to impress some fat congressman or civilian aide, and here we’re at war and they start
