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

radioed Nha Be TOC requesting more C-3 to be delivered by helos. While we waited, I snapped several pictures of the bunkers. Then I took a picture of one of the helos as four haversacks containing twenty pounds each of explosives, safety fuse, and M-60 fuse lighters were dropped down to us.

Mr. Meston gave me one of the sacks, which I toted back to McCollum and Funkhouser. We utilized ten pounds of the C-3 to punch a couple more big holes through the die-hard bunker walls, then we physically forced the conquered structure down.

“Hoo-yah!” I cried as the last logs fell, releasing my frustration by throwing up my fists and pummeling the air. “It went down hard, but it went down!” We all laughed.

Several minutes later, after a few more explosions, Mr. Meston called everyone together in the center of the bunker complex.

“The helos have sighted several large bunkers about three or four hundred meters to the west,” he informed us. “We’ll patrol there and use the remaining C-3 on ’em.” Using the azimuths the helo crew had given, he fixed our direction with his compass. Then glancing around at every face, he said, “Let’s get it done before it gets dark on us.”

With Pearson at the point, we began patrolling through the nipa palm toward the distant bunker complex. My position in line was behind Markel, who was carrying the radio behind Lieutenant Meston, and ahead of Lieutenant (jg) Schrader. With no enemy in our area of operation, we moved quicker than usual through the jungle. The ground was muddy, but the mud was not thick and clingy. We were able to proceed at a steady pace, which was essential in order to reach the bunkers and have time to blow them before nightfall.

After three hundred meters of relaxed, easy going, I spied something to give me pause: fresh bootprints along an intersecting path. I stopped and stared at them, pointing them out to Mr. Schrader.

“Looks like several people walked through here today,” I declared. Mr. Schrader nodded his head in agreement. We both looked up at the backs of our teammates ahead of us, who were continuing on without hesitation.

“Surely they saw these tracks,” I said, my voice becoming quieter as my concern escalated.

Mr. Schrader turned and faced Flynn, who was hurrying toward us with a look that told me he had something urgent to report.

“There’s a VC bunker on our left flank to our rear,” he told Schrader.

I got a queasy feeling in my stomach, comparable to the sick sensation I had gotten back in the fifth grade when I had discovered the school bully waiting in the bushes for me on my way home one day. I had known he had wanted to jump me, but I hadn’t been expecting the attack in the security of my own backyard.

I looked at the fresh tracks again, and I knew in my gut that the enemy was close. I gazed ahead thirty meters at Mr. Meston’s back, and I wondered what was in his mind. I wished he would look back so I could signal to him.

No sooner wished than done. Meston turned around. Our eyes met and I motioned for him to wait. Schrader went ahead to tell the lieutenant about the footprints and the bunker. The rest of us held our positions, eyeing the brush around us. I was fully aware that our easy op could suddenly evolve in an unexpected direction.

While Schrader and Meston discussed the situation in whispers, I held my CAR-15 a little firmer. At the same time, because of her added firepower—the 40 mm grenade launcher—I wished I were holding Bad Girl instead. Making a quick mental inventory, I knew we had two Stoner machine guns and two M-79 grenade launchers among us, which wasn’t too shabby, unless we stumbled into a company of two hundred slopeheads, who were a bit perturbed at our treatment of their bunkers. In that case, we were undermanned and undergunned.

I looked again at the many human tracks crossing through the area, and I believed, in fact, that an encounter was a surety. An instant later, an abrupt burst of gunfire scared the living shit out of me.

I dropped to my knees and swung my rifle toward the rear where the shooting was taking place. I saw Dicey firing his M-16 into the brush beside him as Moses fired two 40mm HE grenades into the same patch of jungle. The grenades blew, then the two men held their fire and stared for a moment at I-don’t-know-what. A few seconds later, I did know what as Moses signaled that they had shot at two VC. One had dropped and the other had crawled away wounded.

Suddenly I heard excited male voices in the jungle to my left. The language spoken was clearly Vietnamese. This convinced me that we’d walked right into an enemy unit.

“Recon by fire!” Meston yelled at us. All twelve of us sprayed the surrounding brush with our weapons. The shooting spree lasted only ten seconds due to the fact that we’d brought less than half of a normal load of ammo on this op and had to conserve our resources.

Mr. Meston signaled for Dicey and Moses to recon what was now our right flank, and Pearson and I moved to recon the left. After a short exploration, during which we found more human footprints but no human beings, we returned to the others. Dicey and Moses came back with two weapons that had been dropped by the VC they had drilled.

We were totally compromised. Every enemy soldier within a mile or two knew we were there, having had the pleasure of listening to our weapons emphatically bid them to go to hell. Uncomfortably aware of this, Mr. Meston gave a circular hand motion which told us to set up a hasty defense, a 360-degree circle, while he radioed for extraction via the choppers. I picked out a good spot of concealment in the brush where I