It was gloomy, hot and airless on the floor of the triple canopy forest. The thirteen men were traversing an animal trail, no wider than their footfalls, and steeply up or down in the rugged mountainous terrain. They moved slowly, quietly, observing noise discipline. Dog tags were taped together so they wouldn't rattle, nothing was in the pockets that might jingle. Even canteens were plastic to reduce any noise if they hit something. They moved along at the required interval. In the jungle that meant about 5 meters apart. Just close enough that you could see the Marine ahead, most of the time. Camouflage uniforms clung to bodies with accumulated sweat from the sweltering summer heat and humidity. They stopped for ten minutes every hour, to replenish water loss and rest from the strenuous exercise.
The squad had been flown in to Firebase Charlie in Marine Helos. The 105MM howitzers of the Firebase would cover their retreat if they needed aid later in the night. They disembarked, formed up and immediately walked through an opening in the concertina wire, across the open defensive area, and into the forest. This was their hunting ground, and they were good at what they did. Every man had scored expert on the known distance firing range with his rifle, and they all had experience shooting at real live targets who shoot back, which is much tougher than shooting at an immovable bullseye target.
The sergeant was proud of these men, although he would never think of telling them that. He'd had all of them, save one, for at least 3 months and they were trained to a razors edge. They knew exactly what he wanted in all situations, at all times, so there was very little need for yelling. The newby could be a pain in the ass at times, but he was learning quickly to watch the others and ape their behavior. If he could survive the learning phase his chances of living through his thirteen month combat tour would greatly increase. A Marine could be killed at any time, but survival rates went up the longer he was in combat.
Today's mission was a simple one, if not easy. Ambush patrol. The art of the ambush was finding a good place to set up, where his men would be protected, yet they would have open fields of fire. The squad was working its way through the jungle toward an off-shoot of the Ho Chi Minh trail in northern South Vietnam, almost within shouting distance of Laos to the west and the Demilitarized Zone to the north. In I Corps to be exact, Quang Tri Province, home of the 1st MarDiv, along with thousands of NVA. This was one of the trails that supplied the North Vietnamese Army regulars who were trying to push the Marines back to the coast. It would never happen, the Sergeant thought, but they were welcome to try. He loved killing gooks. Made his day!
The point man, Lance Corporal Johnson, whose job was to lead the squad, looking for signs of the enemy, and especially for booby traps, was two people ahead of the Sergeant. He turned and raised his left arm, hand clenched in a fist, to signal a stop. Every man repeated the signal to the man behind him as the Sergeant worked his way forward, with his radioman in trail, to find out the problem.
"Sarge, I think we're close", whispered the point man.
"I can see that Johnson", replied Sergeant Roche. He looked back, raised his arm with fingers extended and palm outward, to tell the others to hold position. Again the hand signal was passed back up the line.
"Come with me", he whispered to Johnson and the radioman.
The three slowly worked their way two hundred meters down the slope to within about five meters of the trail, which was about five meters wide, but well concealed by the tree cover above. The sergeant was about the same distance from the trail, inside the treeline, and because of the extra light the trail afforded, the undergrowth was thicker here than deeper in the wood. He studied the area to left and right. and determined this was as good a place as any to set up. He motioned the point man to return and bring the squad down, so he could place them. Johnson nodded his understanding and began working his way quietly back up the hill.
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.
The hours passed slowly. Nightfall didn't so much creep in as descend abruptly this close to the equator. One minute it was a murky daylight, as it had been all day, and the next it was dark. It became even noisier after dark. All the night creatures stirred, the hunters stalked and killed the hunted, the hunted tried desperately to survive, and life went on, ignoring the men as if they were just a nuisance to be tolerated.
As their eyes adjusted to the loss of light the men began to see the trail, just by the difference in landscape from the forest around. Then a three quarter moon rose and the trail lit up quite well for eyes now adjusted to the dark.
It was approaching 2300 hours by his luminous watch dial when the Sergeant heard faint noises. It was hard to tell direction in the forest, where sounds bounce rather than travel in a straight line. But he was sure that here, at this time of night, they could only be from one source. Men moving down the trail in one direction or the other. It didn't matter to him which way they were moving. They were the enemy, and that's all he cared about. He took two silent steps forward and patted the closest man on the back of the leg to ensure he knew something was about to change, and the man nodded his understanding. Then Roche moved down the line to the left and did the same to each man. His radioman did the same on the right side of the line. Then they quietly made their way back to the reserve position, three meters to the rear of the middle of the line.
The trail noises got louder. The NVA soldiers weren't nearly as disciplined as his squad. They thought they had the trail to themselves, so far from any known American base. Besides, these guys weren't really soldiers, they were porters. Their job was to transport everything the real soldiers needed from Hanoi to the jungle, on their backs or on bicycles. And they moved everything! Small arms, Ammo, food, medicine, artillery pieces. If they were coming from the north they would be hauling these things. If they were coming from the south they were probably moving wounded, or just headed north to get their next load. Even though they were not what Roche considered real soldiers, they were not to be taken lightly. Whatever their mission, every man was armed and trained,
Now a figure came into view through the Sergeants infra-red view finder. Then another and another, until the trail was literally packed with North Vietnamese, dressed in the ubiquitous khaki uniform and helmet, some carrying stretchers loaded with wounded, some walking beside bicycles, some just walking, all with AK-47s at sling arms. That many people made a lot of noise, even when they were trying to be quiet, which wasn't the case with this mob.
The Sergeant took aim at what looked like an officer and waited until he was sure all his men had targets directly to their front, then pulled the trigger. The mans head literally exploded from the pressure of the high velocity .223 round. Immediately his men double clicked their detonators and claymores exploded up and down the line, each firing a hundred double-ought sized shotgun pellets at the enemy. A dozen or more went down immediately. As soon as they could, each of his men discarded the detonators and unleashed his individual weapon. The machine guns chattered, the '16s burped in two and three round bursts, the 40MM grenade launchers thumped, and more men to their front went down.
After what seemed like an eternity the survivors reacted, moving off the trail into the brush on the other side of the road. Rounds were coming his way now, raggedly at first and then with more intensity, and the Sergeant heard one of his men groan, and then scream. He moved to the sound, saw that it was Lance Corporal Johnson, 2nd team leader. Johnson was holding his left side, and Roche could see blood leaking between the man's fingers. On his belly, the Sergeant ripped Johnson's shirt out of his trousers and looked at the wound. It was a through and through, bleeding profusely, and while Johnson was in pain he was moving and had his wits about him, so Roche thought he might live. Roche opened Johnson's first aid pack and slapped a large torso bandage onto the wound, wrapped the strings around his body and tied it off tightly. Johnson grunted.
"How you feeling?" the Sergeant asked, speaking for the first time in hours.
"Hurts like hell sarge," replied the Lance Corporal.
Roche looked him in the eye and asked, "Are you going to be able to move kid?"
"Just watch me!" said Johnson with a grimace.
Meanwhile the battle went on. Roche could hear officers on the other side of the road beginning to shout at their men. He knew that meant they were getting their shit together over there.. It was time to move before the enemy, who outnumbered his squad at least ten to one, could mount a counter-attack. He motioned for the radioman, who was at his side in a moment.
"Tango 6 this is Ranger 6." he called on the Firebase wavelength, and repeated it.
"Ranger 6, Tango 6", the answer came.
"Fire mission, known coordinates," and he gave those. "Fire for effect!"
"Roger, fire for effect," the answer came, after a repeat of the coordinates.
"Time to go," the Sergeant thought, and he yelled "Move!".
His men immediately began to move backward, toward and then past him, further into the jungle. One man was helping Johnson. It looked like he was still bleeding a little, but that would have to wait. He was moving with help, but mostly under his own power, and Roche was sure the wound wasn't mortal. It's a Hollywood fiction that if a soldier is hit, he dies. Only about one, perhaps as high as two out of ten wounded men die, especially in this age of modern warfare, where the wounded reach medical facilities much faster than in past times. That's what the Sergeant thought as he began to work uphill, rounds ripping past like the buzzing of a bee.
The Sergeant knew that if they could make it a couple of hundred meters into the jungle the enemy wouldn't follow. Not at night, with no idea where the Americans might be. Whatever they were, they weren't stupid. So he moved quickly, and soon outdistanced the enemy bullets. The sound masked their movement, but the NVA would soon realize they were no longer being fired at and mount a charge across the trail.
Roche began to hear whistling noises overhead, first one, and then several. There were five large guns at the firebase, and they had all fired within a few seconds of each other. The whistles became loud 'karumphs' as the 105MM rounds exploded about 25 meters in the air, sending death into any human or animal bodies beneath. He knew that would delay any attack the gooks might be planning, and with any luck they had been caught in the open by the artillery rounds, which were still incoming.
A few minutes and the squad had reached the rendezvous point. The Sergeant immediately asked for a head count. When he was sure everyone was present he set up a two man blocking force. They would wait five minutes and then follow while he led the squad up the trail. They moved quickly for a half hour, making a little more noise than they normally would, but at this point speed was much more important than stealth. Then he stopped to have a look at Johnson. He was in pain, which was relieved with an ampule of morphine, injected into the wound as a local anesthetic. The wound was through and through, in the left side but above the kidney, There had been a good bit of blood loss, but the bandage had helped the wound coagulate.
"How you doin'?" he asked.
"I'm ok sarge," Johnson replied.
"Can you keep up?"
"I'm ok I tell ya."
"I'll carry his weapon," another man said.
"Okay, let's keep going," the Sergeant said. "We'll move fast and be back at the firebase for extraction in an hour with any luck. It was a good patrol, Marines.