The Ambush

While he waited the sergeants thoughts wandered. On his third combat tour, he was twenty-five, the old man of the outfit.  He'd grown up on a cattle ranch outside a small town in east Texas, and he had gone home on leave after his first tour, only to find his girl dating a Jody. His friends from high school tried to be supportive, but it turned out he no longer had much in common with them. They were still doing 'kid stuff', trying to stay young as long as possible. He felt old in comparison. They asked him about the war, but he found it impossible to talk about it with people who couldn't possibly understand what he had been through. And oddly enough, he felt guilty about leaving his buddies behind, and his thoughts seemed to be constantly back 'in country', so he had returned as soon as the Corps could arrange it. He had only been home once since then, when his grandmother died. He felt more at home here than back there. He knew what he was doing here. Life in the States was complicated, life here was easy. Live or die, do your job right and your friends lived, do it wrong and they died. He was proud to think he did it right most of the time. He regretted every death, but he was philosophical about it. Even if you do everything perfectly men will die. It's war! Men die!

Most of his twelve man squad were just kids, eighteen, twenty, with an average age of nineteen. But they were kids only in age. They actually looked much older, probably because they seldom smiled and never laughed, at least not while on patrol. In the boonies they were quiet if they wanted to live  Quiet with an exclamation point! Back at their base at Phu Bai, when they knew they wouldn't be going back out for a few days, they could relax and enjoy life, and nobody enjoys life like a soldier with time on his hands, money in his pockets, and nobody shooting at him! Even in a combat zone you can always find a cold beer and a girl willing and able to indulge your every desire for a negotiable price! The only two things a Marine requires for a good time.

A Marine squad was made up of three, four man Fire Teams. Each team was made up of a machine gunner and three riflemen carrying M-16s. One rifleman usually also carried a 40MM Grenade Launcher, affectionately known as 'Thumper', with a dozen rounds of ammo. Another rifleman carried a box of linked ammo for the machine gun. As the squad made its way to him he positioned each man, at about ten meter intervals, showing him his field of fire and his egress route in case of counter-attack.  With only thirteen weapons at his disposal that was a definite problem. He did have the three M-60 machine guns, which he placed near either end of his ambush configuration, with the third in the middle. His line was about one hundred and twenty meters wide.  He and the radioman would make up the reserve, able to move to any position within seconds if the need arose. He made sure each man knew where the rendezvous point was, on the hillside where they had stopped earlier. From there they could vamoose quickly back up the trail.

Each man improved his position quickly. A shallow hole to conceal most of the body from the trail below. The excavated earth was packed tightly in front and used as a berm to hopefully absorb incoming rounds. The underbrush hid the men quite effectively, and yet allowed their weapons free range of motion. Once through with his individual fighting hole, each man made his way down to the edge of the undergrowth and set up the Claymore mine he had brought. Unlike a conventional land mine, the Claymore is command-detonated and directional, meaning it is fired by remote-control, shooting a pattern of metal balls into the kill zone like a shotgun. The men then moved back to their holes and connected the Claymore wiring to the detonator. Now it was just a matter of waiting. After a few minutes of complete quiet the jungle noises commenced. Tree frogs croaked, insects buzzed, life returned to the forest.

The Sergeant allowed every other man to eat and then sleep for two hours, and then the others had their turn. Rest and nourishment are the most vital things for a combat soldier, next to ammo and a clean rifle. The former keep men alert, the latter keep them alive.