couldn’t have carried ’em out of here, and there’s no way we could’ve buried ’em.”
“Yeah, I know. But it sure brings it close to home, doesn’t it? I mean, the sight of them, still in their uniforms, rotting away like that. And you notice the uniforms are okay, but their flesh has turned that ghastly greenish gray, and you think to yourself, I’ll bet when he put that uniform on he didn’t know it’d outlast him—and then you find yourself starting to look at your own uniform.”
“Yeah,” I said, “there but for the grace of God, and so forth. Bill, you still philosophizing?”
“No, sir. No one ever accused me of that except Mac, and he’s the one who majored in it!”
He paused a moment and then said, “But speaking of Mac, I wouldn’t worry too much about his replacement. He’ll come along. Just takes time. These first few days are hard on a new platoon leader. Big adjustment, from a Stateside BOQ. Mean, here’s O’Brien, Army puts him through the basic course and then lets him spend five, six months in a training command—which does absolutely nothing to prepare him for what he’s about to be thrown into. Then one bright and sunny day he steps off a slick and it’s welcome to the real world, or maybe that’s the surreal world, Lieutenant! It’s tough. At first you’re kind of numb, but then after three, four days, maybe a week, you’re suddenly struck with the awesome realization that you’re gonna live this existence, if you live, for the next twelve months! And that can be a very traumatic awakening. Fortunately, it doesn’t last long. Pretty soon you reenter the numb phase, just living from day to day, looking neither forward nor backward.”
“Until you pack it up and go home, huh?” I commented.
“No, sir. Not according to Mac and others. They say you’ve got one more phase to go through, maybe the toughest one. That’s the short-timer’s phase, when you start to look forward again, and in doing so get nervous, cautious, hell, even paranoid in some cases. But your new lieutenant doesn’t have to worry ‘bout the trials of the short-timer for a while yet. And again, I think he’ll do just fine.”
Norwalk was right, of course, and Dick O’Brien would turn out to be a fine combat leader. As were all the lieutenants in Charlie Company.
“But you did the right thing by sending him back up the hill,” Norwalk commented. “He’ll sleep better tonight because of it. Just like getting back on a horse.”
“Why, thank you for your confidence in my decision, Lieutenant,” I jested.
“Also did right by putting us up here in a posture to give him an assist if need be,” he added.
“Well, thank you again.”
Whoom! The claymore exploded! Our hit man to the north had a target.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat! The M-60 machine gun sprang to life; and so did we.
Being within thirty meters of the ambush site, we reached it in a matter of moments. The machine gunner was still working the area in and around the fallen bodies when we arrived.
“Got four of ’em, LT!” the hit man said excitedly, still clutching the claymore’s electrical detonator tightly in his hand.
Norwalk and I stared momentarily at the shattered, lifeless bodies lying in disarray at our feet. And their uniforms have outlasted them.
Indeed, such is the way of war, Bill.
“Good show, One Six. Super!” I said. “Now retrieve their weapons, do a quick body search, and let’s go back to the ranch.”
I called O’Brien and told him to “regress” to the NDP.
By dusk we had our night defensive positions dug and awaited the evening log bird, thankful that one of our longest days in the Nam was about to end.
But it wasn’t.
“Three’s on the horn, sir,” Blair said.
Uh oh! He can’t move us again, not now! Shit, it’ll be dark in another forty-five minutes.
“Comanche, this is Arizona Three. I’m inbound with twelve, plus zero, plus two in zero seven. Got enemy on a hill up the coast and gonna put you on top of them. It’s a ‘needlepoint,’ so be prepared for insert on a two-ship LZ. Once you go green, I’ll have charlie rats, water, and any class V you need en route. Get your class V wants to your trains soonest if you’ve not already done so. How copy?”
“This is Comanche Six. Good copy… uh… poor timing, but good copy. We’ll be ready for pickup. Over.”
“Roger, Comanche. They told us there’d be days like this, but they never said they’d come like bananas, huh? And I’m light on the skids, inbound in seven. Out.”
First Sgt. Bull Sullivan was pissed… really pissed!
“Goddamn it, sir. What do they want from us? How many times we moved today? Shit, up last night with the probe, hit the villages first thing this morning, linked up with tracks, back up here to the mountain! How many fucking chinks we killed today?”
Yes, he’s really pissed, I thought to myself. When he slips into his Korean-vintage referral to the enemy as chinks, you know he’s pissed!
“Fourteen, sixteen? I tell you, Six, the troops are tired! The troops are beat! Didn’t have C&D this morning, ain’t gonna have a hot tonight—and they’ll forget to send the fucking mail out with the charlie rats, just wait and see! I mean, what the fuck they want out of us?”
“Take it easy, Top,” I said rather sternly, but I hoped also compassionately. “I know how you feel, but nothing we can say or do is gonna change it. And, Top, you and me been ‘round long enough to know that, right? And we’ve also been ‘round long enough to know something big is happening right now. So how about whipping us up a quick air-movement order, cause we’ve already wasted two of our seven minutes in getting out of here.”
He stared at me fixedly, almost rebelliously, for a brief moment. Then, suddenly smiling, he said, “Shit, you’re right, Six. Hell, let’s go see some of the country!”
Turning from me, he yelled, “Okay, drop your cocks and grab your socks. We’re moving! Want to see my platoon sergeants up here, now!”
Concurrently, I called the platoon leaders forward and passed on Byson’s warning order, emphasizing that we were all going in aboard slicks on a two-ship LZ. Five minutes later, with the last rays of sunlight disappearing over the western horizon, we were on our way to another of Binh Dinh’s mountains.
Our flight of twelve Hueys orbited the mountain’s pinnacle in a wide circle and then, flying in trail, prepared to land on our needlepoint LZ. Because there were other friendly forces in the area, many of them on the mountain or at its base, Major Byson had decided against an artillery prep. However, this did not prohibit our accompanying Cobra gunships, suddenly roaring by us as we sped toward the LZ, from plastering the hilltop with aerial rockets and 40-mm grenades.
Whoom! Whoom! Whoom!
With the wind of the Huey’s backwash in our faces, we watched the oncoming LZ explode in brilliant orange-and-red flashes, each immediately followed by an erupting pillow of black-and-white smoke intermingled with dust, dirt, and bits of foliage and rock, all of which was thrown asunder into Vietnam’s darkening sky.
The lead Huey slowed, assuming a nose-up attitude, as we quickly maneuvered ourselves onto its skids. We leaped just before they touched the LZ’ s rocky surface. Two at a time the other Hueys followed us in, discharging their soldiers in a matter of seconds; then, nose down and gaining airspeed, they were away. The LZ, as usual— and thank God for it—was green.
But Charlie was here, hidden among the hill’s crevices and rocks with his defenses oriented downhill. Within a matter of minutes we would find him.
As the whump, whump of the Hueys faded in the distance, we moved off the mountain’s peak down a long, loosely vegetated ridge with One Six on the left, Three Six on the right, and Two Six straddling the ridge a bit in front of the other two platoons. The headquarters section followed Two Six. Moments later there was the abrupt crack of an AK-47 round on Two Six’s right flank, followed by an immediate fusillade of M-16 and M-60 machine- gun fire.
“We got one, sir!” O’Brien yelled excitedly, looking over his left shoulder toward us. “No, I think two! And a weapon—got us an AK!”
“Great!” I yelled back. “Let’s see what…”
Suddenly, two blurry figures flashed across our front, between us in the headquarters section and O’Brien’s platoon. They had obviously been well concealed but, like frightened quail in a cornfield, had been unnerved by the sudden exchange of gunfire. Their decision to flee was not a wise one. It was an especially unfortunate choice for the one who carried an explosive satchel charge strapped to his chest.
