Death in the Jungle by Gary Smith (most inspirational books .txt) 📕

to snicker at the mental picture of a comrade falling in. Of course, I couldn’t snicker; strict noise discipline had to be maintained. Sounds, especially talk, carried incredibly far in the jungle, as I had learned in Panama only a few weeks earlier. I wondered now about the sound of the boat motor: Had it been heard by any bad boys? I squeezed my bad girl a little tighter.

I dropped to one knee in the mud, my gun at the ready. My ears strained for sounds of enemy movement. Lieutenants Meston and Gill were a few feet behind me. At first, the only thing I detected was the drifting away of our support boat. A couple minutes later, there was silence. I only heard the ringing in my ears. Then I heard someone speak, which startled me until I realized the voice was only in my mind. It said, “Be careful, Smitty.”

Another ten minutes passed. I saw and heard nothing. Lieutenant Meston signaled me to lead on. I moved slowly and painstakingly, which was the only possible way to walk in muck and mud. With each step, I felt like some little dirt devil was trying to suck my hundred-and-seventy-five-pound frame down into his private pit.

I knew from Meston’s PLO (patrol leader’s order) that the first three hundred meters was defoliated swampland, which, translated, meant “our butts are exposed.” We wanted to get to cover as quickly as possible, but we’d been trained too well to screw up by senseless haste, so I proceeded cautiously on point. The lieutenants were right behind me, with the radioman, Brown, behind them. The others followed single file, but I couldn’t see them in the dark.

After almost an hour, the open ground was behind us. We entered a mangrove swamp, which consisted of nipa palm and other tropical maritime trees and shrubs in dense masses. One hundred meters into the bush, I found a creek flowing into the Rach Long Vuong, which was the minor tributary we were to follow in a big U-shape back to the Quan Quang Xuyen and the extraction point the next morning. It was at this finger of water that Meston wanted to hide out for a couple hours, looking and listening for enemy activity. He signaled me to scout the creek, both north and south of the platoon, while the rest waited.

The sky was lightening as I patrolled, and the bushes gradually changed color from night-black to green. I patrolled the bank up and down the creek, looking for human tracks in the mud. My eyes scanned the foliage across the water. There were no signs of life, except for the mosquitos.

Working my way back to the platoon, I gave Meston the “all clear.” He motioned me to crawl into some brush along the creek, assuming the right flank. I picked my way through the bushes and Vines and found the driest spot I could, where my rump would sink in the mud only a couple inches. Each man in the platoon followed suit, finding a hiding place off to my left, ending up spread out in a perimeter overlooking the creek.

I’d been warned that armor-piercing mosquitos loved the dawn, and they loved SEALs. Sure enough, hundreds of the nasty things lost little time in locating my position. But I’d worked hard at covering every square inch of meat from my neck down with military-issue camouflage greens and cotton long johns. And my head held a thick layer of mosquito repellent, courtesy of the United States Navy.

On my legs, dozens of the hairy-legged gooks tried to penetrate my clothing. I didn’t feel anything, so I guessed my protection was adequate. Another whole division buzzed my head. I watched them for several seconds, wishing I could identify the big shot of the bunch. I’d have liked to put him out of commission, but I couldn’t pick him out. All of them were huge.

Just before the sun glinted over the horizon, the mosquitos mounted a final offensive, attacking me from all quarters. There was no way to swat a thousand ace flyers, so I didn’t swat any. I just allowed the repellent and clothing to do the job.

After a while, I looked through the hordes of mosquitos at the foliage around me, and I discovered the red ants. They, too, appeared to have heard the dinner bell. It amazed me that such little creatures showed no fear of such a large beast as myself. I looked forward to killing some of them.

A couple hours went by, and things had changed. The mosquitos had retired to who-knows-where, somewhere to escape the heat of the day. Eleven enemy dead—red ants—lay at my feet. Eight had died without warning; the other three, well, suffice it to say that their deaths had been drawn out and painful because each one had put a round of teeth in me before his capture. I went down in their books as a WIA; they went down dead.

I looked over at ADJ3 Bucklew, who was visible to my left about ten meters away. He was hard to see through all the vegetation and cammo paint, but I knew exactly where to look. Besides that, I could smell him. I stared at him for a full minute, fully aware that I was gazing at the nephew of the famous Captain Bucklew of World War II.

Eventually, Bucklew’s head slowly turned toward me. He looked for a few seconds, then his white teeth flashed behind a big, silly grin. I smiled back, then stuck out my tongue at him.

The temperature rose toward a hundred degrees. Inside my long johns, I felt like a baked potato wrapped in tinfoil. Still, I was grateful, for without the long johns, the mosquitos would’ve drained me dry. As it stood, I believed I’d lost only a pint of high octane.

Bucklew abruptly waved at me and signaled that it was time to move. I crawled out of the mud and waited for the lieutenant. Two minutes