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

of a place? Only SEALs, for whom R&R stood for “raid ’em and rattle ’em.” Right then, however, all the racket was rattling me.

Mr. Meston, breaking too many branches, followed directly behind me, keeping an eye on his watch compass and our direction. Bucklew, carrying the radio behind Mr. Meston, was keeping the pace count, meaning he was counting every step as we went. In thick jungle, where one could see only a few feet through the foliage, compass use and pace count were essential to not getting lost. The T-10 area was not a place in which red, white, and blue lovers could afford to lose their way.

After an hour, the pace count was three hundred. It had taken sixty minutes to travel approximately two hundred meters. I looked back at Mr. Meston and he signaled for me to stop. Everyone halted and we listened awhile.

I heard something in the brush to my left. As I slowly turned my body toward the sound, Sweet Lips pivoted with me at hip-level. I spotted a movement low to the ground, and when it moved again I identified a brown hare. It was a little fellow, perhaps ten inches long. He didn’t appear to notice me, and after a few carefree hops, he was gone.

Mr. Meston waited a couple minutes more, then motioned to me to move.

Two hours later, we’d covered a total of six hundred meters from the point of insertion. We were still two hundred meters from our ambush site, and my attitude was poor. The platoon as a whole was making far too much noise, which increased our danger, and I could hardly stand it anymore. There wasn’t a hint of a breeze, and in the dead quiet outside our perimeter, every snapping stick must have resounded like a rifle shot.

The air temperature was at least ninety, and perspiration seeped out of every sweat gland in my body. I rubbed countless sweat beads off my forehead with my hand and with them came some of the camouflage paint I’d applied several hours before. I was too late with the wipe as sweat ran into my eyes, forcing them shut with a burning sensation. I squeezed my eyelids, wrinkling up my face, then popped open my eyes just in time to see a twig snap in two against my right shoulder. More of our noise discipline down the toilet. But I didn’t halfway care anymore. Let the gooks hear us and come after us. Then we could get the confrontation and the mission over with.

Come on, Smitty, I scolded myself. Get it together, man. Stay focused. You’re the point man and the guys are trusting you with their lives. Shake off the heat and the problems. Concentrate on your job. Stay alert.

A few seconds later, I was back in the saddle. I knew what I must do and I’d do it as well as was possible under the most trying conditions. But I went only another twenty meters before Mr. Meston signaled me to stop. I watched him as he stepped over a vine and approached me through the brush. He stopped four feet away and looked intently into my eyes. His stare was one of concern, and I knew he was wondering if I was okay. Somehow he had sensed my mental struggle.

I nodded my head and winked at him, which was all the reassurance he needed. With that, he looked back and signaled Bucklew to pass the word for the men to set up a perimeter and to repose right where they were. It was obvious there was no need to form a circle of any kind as we were not moving down an established trail. The terrain dictated much of the tactics, and in that thick mess we simply had to maintain visual contact and strict noise discipline while we rested.

I sat down on some root offshoots of a bush, which kept my backside out of the mud. The heels of my jungle boots sank a few inches into the slime, however. It was almost impossible not to have some kind of bodily contact with the mud.

Mr. Meston settled down a couple yards away and took a drink of water from one of his canteens. The image of it presented a message to my dehydrated brain that I should do the same. Removing a quart canteen from my web belt, I took a sip, swished it around in my mouth, then swallowed. The water tasted great, even though it was warm. The second swig was long and better yet. I thought I might live through that god-awful day, after all.

I slipped the canteen back into its canvas pouch and took my cammo paint kit out of my pants pocket. The sweat had streaked the cammo on my face, I knew without looking.

After applying the green and black cammo to my cheeks, nose, and forehead, I slid the kit back into my pocket. As I did, something bit the back of my neck. Without too quick of a motion, I reached up with my right hand and found the culprit with my fingers: a red ant. I used the nails on my thumb and index fingers to cut off its malevolent head.

No sooner had I performed the execution and flicked the corpse away than another ant bit my left wrist. This one I brushed onto a ridge of mud near my left boot. My instantly devised plan was to step on it and push it deep into the muck, but I couldn’t get my boot out of the hole it had made.

As the ant raced away, I caught it with the shotgun’s stock and rammed it underground. Sweet Lips delivered the kiss of death again, albeit in a rather unusual style.

Wondering where the ants were coming from, I looked around at the bush behind my back. Sure enough, there were red ants on every limb and leaf. I also counted six ants on me, crawling on my sleeves