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

mouth with a handkerchief. He had to be disgusted, as a self-inflicted punch in the mouth was no SEAL’s But what was done was done, and at least Mr. Meston still had a heart, unlike a couple of gooks I’d run into shortly before.

A minute later, I thanked God when I heard the power props of the Boston Whalers whirring downstream. Some of the bravest men in the world were brazenly entering this hellhole to save our butts from an inevitable counterattack.

When the coxswains of the two Whalers located us, they rammed their bows into the riverbank so the nine of us could jump aboard. Nothing had ever felt better to me than the fiberglass deck of the boat where I plopped my rear end, even though it was as cold as, well, steel. Cold, but safe, and being safe was at the top of my priority list right then.

The Whalers roared away from the ambush site, dramatically rescuing the good guys as they were paid to do and prayed to. We left behind two or three dead enemies, depending upon who was counting. Oh, yeah, and Mr. Meston’s teeth.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mission Twenty-seven

“Life without the courage for death is slavery.”

Seneca, Letters to Lucilius

DATE: 23 December 1967

TIME: 1445H to 1745H

UNITS INVOLVED: Foxtrot 1, 2, Army UH1B

TASK: Recon patrol, destroy VC bunkers with demolitions

METHOD OF INSERTION: Army slick UH1B helo

METHOD OF EXTRACTION: Army slick UH1B helo

TERRAIN: Nipa palm, partly defoliated

TIDE: 1340H-3.3 feet, 2130H-12.1 feet

WEATHER: Clear

SEAL TEAM PERSONNEL:

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

Lt. (jg) Schrader, Ass’t Patrol Leader/Rifleman, M-16

PR1 Pearson, Point/Rifleman, M-16

RM2 Smith, Ass’t Point/Cameraman/Rifleman, CAR-15

MM2 Funkhouser, Automatic Weapons, Stoner

BT2 McCollum, Ordnance/Grenadier, M-79

BT2 Moses, Grenadier, M-79

ADJ2 Markel, Radioman/Rifleman, M-16

ADJ2 Flynn, Automatic Weapons, Stoner

HM2 Brown, Corpsman/Rifleman, M-16

SN Dicey, Rifleman, M-16

Gieng (LDNN SEAL), Rifleman, M-16

AZIMUTHS: None

ESCAPE: 270 degrees

CODE WORDS: Insert-Ford, Bunker Site-Chevy, Loading Charge-Blast Off, Extract-Buick

Over the next three and a half weeks, we went out on five missions. On the first, I spotted a large deer that ran from beneath the helo when we inserted. Then on ambush at dusk, a large buck appeared just twenty-five yards away from me. He was fat and sleek and had a rack similar to an elk’s with five points on each antler. He foraged around for about ten minutes, barked a few times, then disappeared into the jungle. The week before my sightings, Mr. Meston had seen an enormous deer walk to the edge of the river where we had been positioned on an ambush site. I believed that to be the first sighting ever by a SEAL of a deer in the Rung Sat.

On the second mission, Foxtrot Second Squad killed two VC and expropriated two weapons and a sampan. Before the hit, I had discovered a booby trap, a pineapple-type hand grenade secured in a tree, with a trip wire running across the trail from the grenade to another tree. Fortunately, I had found the booby trap with my eyes and not my feet.

In between these missions, the fourteen members of Echo Platoon had invited the rest of us to their going-away party at the chief’s club, where the SEALs, helo crews, and boat support personnel consumed steaks, baked beans, French fries, and salad along with twenty cases of beer and two cases of hard liquor. The next day, Echo Platoon flew to Subic Bay on the first leg of its journey home, and four days later, 10 December, the twelve men of Bravo Platoon replaced Echo at Nha Be. The Bravo Platoon members were Lt. (jg) Van Heertum, WO1 Casey, EM2 Lou DiCroce, RMSN McHugh, GMG3 Jewett, HMC Blackburn, SA Keith, AN Klann, ETNSN Luksik, TM1 Payne (because of wounds Payne was later replaced by EM2 Puckett), SN Antone, and FN Hyatt.

On our last mission, which was my twenty-sixth of the tour, we patrolled to a VC base camp, which the occupants had left in a hurry before our arrival, leaving behind hot ashes in their kitchen. We blew and burned several huts and four sampans with incendiary grenades, keeping some papers and M-79 ammunition we found at the scene.

The next day was Friday, December 22, 1967. Some VC swimmers struck back at us in the early morning hours by floating a contact-detonated mine into one of the civilian tankers anchored at the naval base. The tanker suffered some damage but did not sink.

In the spirit of tit for tat, Lieutenant Meston passed a warning order early in the day, then led our briefing at 1800 hours. We were to insert by helo into an area close to the Vam Sat River where no enemy was then supposed to be. With information provided through an intelligence system run by Marine First Lieutenant Winsenson, we knew that a huge bunker complex made out of logs and mud existed in the area, and our job was to destroy the bunkers before the VC came back.

After the briefing, all of us got very busy preparing our gear. Since the area of operation was not hot, I left Bad Girl behind and carried a lighter Car-15 instead. Like the other men, I would tote ten pounds of C-3 explosives. In addition, as the designated photographer, I was to carry a Nikonos camera and take slide pictures of the op.

The next morning, reveille came at 0515 hours. After a hearty breakfast, Foxtrot 1st and 2nd Squads assembled at the helo pad at 0630 hours. The army helos, however, didn’t show up from inserting Alpha and Bravo platoons in the T-10 area, so our mission was canceled until 1400 hours.

At 1300 hours, we had a rebriefing, then we boarded the slicks and headed for the Vam Sat. The flight took just forty minutes, and with no reason for concern over close proximity of the enemy, we were dropped in a partly defoliated mangrove swamp just outside the bunker complex boundary.

We moved into the complex area and were amazed at the sight. I counted eight bunkers and they were the biggest I’d ever seen, with each one measuring at least ten feet