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

As I waited my turn behind Funkhouser, I chuckled to myself. Funky never outran me in anything, except the liquor run. While I was always content to walk, albeit rather briskly, to the service counter, he sprinted.

I chuckled again when Funkhouser placed his order. “Two quarts of Early Times.” Then he ordered two bottles of Portuguese wine.

“I’ll take the same,” I sang out. Funkhouser grinned at me.

Katsma giggled from behind me. “You remind me of the Texan who was sittin’ at a bar when this guy walks in and orders a stiff drink. He drinks it and immediately blacks out and falls to the floor. The Texan says to the bartender, ‘I’ll have what he had, only make mine a double.’ ”

I laughed, collected my booze, and went shopping.

At 1300 hours, all of us gathered at the entrance to the PX to fill up the truck. Everyone had his liquor, and some, like me, had other purchased items. I carried an AM/FM radio, which I’d been wanting.

We traveled another couple of miles to the Continental Hotel, where we sat at sidewalk tables beneath beautiful mango trees and enjoyed sharkfin soup with noodles, fried rice, beer, and French coffee for lunch. Our eyes feasted on the hordes of women walking by.

Two times, Bohannon asked a particularly pretty woman to sit down with him. “Moi co vao ngoi choi,” he said.

Two times, he was ignored.

As the woman walked away, Bo shouted after her, “Co o dau?” Again, the woman was silent, not wishing to tell him where she lived.

I watched the beauty disappear into the masses. I felt a sense of loss when she was gone, as I, too, had hoped she would join us. I knew I would’ve enjoyed gazing into her dark, almond-shaped eyes for a little while. Instead, I was stuck with Bohannon’s bloodshot blues.

Finally, Funkhouser bellowed, “Let’s go back to the Quonset hut and have some fun!”

“Let me at the piano,” agreed McCollum.

“Hoo-yah!” echoed down the street as the sixteen of us went for the pickup truck.

Mr. Meston told us we were making one more stop at the Saigon Central Market.

Mojica exclaimed, “Great! I wanna buy a monkey.”

Bohannon hit him with the obvious comeback. “You are a monkey.”

“And you’re monkey puke,” Mojica bettered him. The two men stared hard at one another. I stepped in between them and looked into Bohannon’s red eyes.

“We’re all gonna be puking before this day is done,” I said with a smile.

Bo studied my grin, then said, “And it’s all your fault, birthday boy!” He slapped my back, and all was well.

After a ten minute ride, we arrived at the market and started wandering through the place. There, under roofs of clean-lined buildings, a wide variety of things were for sale. All kinds of fish, squid, eels, and snails in baskets were available. Brassware, jade, cloth, and hundreds of other items were on display. The odors of fish, seashells, spices, and peppers combined to make up an oriental smell unlike any other I’d experienced.

I ambled over to the site where wild animals and reptiles were shown. Mojica was already there purchasing a young monkey. I watched as he paid fourteen hundred piaster, or about twelve dollars, for the cute little animal.

As the monkey, which was on a leash, climbed onto Mojica’s shoulder, Mojica grinned at me. “I’ve already got a name for him,” he told me.

“What is it?”

“Bo,” he said with a devious laugh. I couldn’t help but laugh with him.

I stuck with Mojica as he bought some bananas and mango for the monkey, then we met the others at the truck. All of the men took an immediate liking to the monkey, and all loved his new name, except Bohannon. Bohannon swore he’d get even with Mojica, and by the look on his face, I was sure he’d try. But for then, Mojica had the upper hand and he was enjoying it plenty.

On the trip back to Nha Be, no one did any drinking. Instead, we had to hang on for dear life as Pearson gunned the truck down the narrow gravel road.

When we reached the place where the sniper had fired at us, the truck was speeding along like a roller coaster on a downhill slide. We were bouncing up and down and moving fast. The wind was beating loudly against my ears. Even so, I heard the sound of gunfire. The sniper was at it again. But again, he missed everything.

After the fifth or sixth report, Flynn waved and shouted, “Bye-bye, shithead!”

Later that afternoon, I felt like the shithead. Having consumed several too many beers, my head was splitting as I lay in my bed. My last beer at the Quonset hut I had chugalugged without pause after my teammates had sung “Happy Birthday” and the old “Chugalug” song. As the beer had gone down, my eyes had watered and I had gagged at the finish.

As I stared through the mosquito net at the ceiling, a sudden white fog overwhelmed me. Through the cobwebs in my mind, I realized that the base DDT truck was outside spraying around the barracks.

For a few seconds, I lay frozen, knowing that the insecticide, at the very least, was at any moment going to choke me up and cause more gagging. While I waited, I heard some of the other SEALs coughing and running through the barracks. One of them was cursing the DDT truck driver.

“I wish he’d stick that hose up his ass!” he screamed.

I silently agreed. Then I gagged. Happy birthday.

CHAPTER SIX

Mission Ten

“The only monuments to this war will be the dead, the maimed, the despairing and the forlorn.”

Letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson from the

International Voluntary Services Agency,

cited by Bernard Weinraub in The New York Times,

J September 20, 1967

DATE: 2 October 1967

TIME: 0635H to 1235H

COORDINATES: YS105771

UNITS INVOLVED: Foxtrot Platoon

TASK: Recon patrol and 48 hr. river ambush

METHOD OF INSERTION: Helo-Navy Seawolves (2)

METHOD OF EXTRACTION: LCM-6

TERRAIN: Mangrove and nipa palm, thick undergrowth

MOON: 1/4

SEAL TEAM PERSONNEL:

Lt. Meston, Patrol Leader/Rifleman, M-16

Lt.