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     The company first sergeant moved up and down the line of men, clad in green and heavily burdened. He frowned at the men carrying three and four grenades.

     “Get rid of the extra grenades,” he said. “Put them back in the crates on the truck and grab some more ammo. You're more likely to use that than those eggs,” and he moved further down the files, checking his men, making sure they had their weapons safed but loaded, and they were clean. “Remember,” he said. “A clean -16 is a happy -16,” and he held his up as an example. His rifle carried an extra cleaning rod taped to the forward hand grip for quickly clearing jams and he only had to occasionally used it. He nodded as he passed the Lima platoon M-60 gunner, Arkansas.

     Arkansas shucked the M-60, clipped on an 81mm mortar sling and flipped an ammo belt over his left shoulder, adjusting the way the belt rode on the C-ration can wired to the left side of the gun's receiver. “Good to go, Sarge,” he said through a smile and he popped a stick of C-Rat chewing gum into his mouth. Arkansas didn't smoke and it made him popular at meal time when the ration boxes were opened and the trading began. He liked the beans and weenies and loved to suck the juice from the weiners then setting them aside, eating the beans, and saving the weiners for the last while everyone in the squad queued up to offer him delicacies for his cigarette pack. He never lacked for chewing gum that way.

     The first sergeant smiled back as he continued the inspection and stopped as he approached the company commander.

     “All correct. Ready to go, sir.” He resisted the urge to salute. A salute was never given to an officer in the field. Too many snipers. Unless you didn't like him. Then you saluted him at every opportunity. And he knew you didn't like him then. But there wasn't anything he could do about it because you were following regs. But it was funny that way.

     “OK, first sergeant. Let's get 'em moving.”

     “Copy that,” said the sergeant. He looked right and left to the Lima and Mike platoon commanders and making a knife edge with his hand, he waved it forward toward the tree line in front of him, just as the RTO Cooper started to hand him the handset for the radio, trying to anticipate the need to transmit. The first sergeant looked down at the black plastic handset, wrapped in a plastic bag to keep the moisture out and chuckling, and sarcastically said “Please. Let's go,” and turned toward the tree line. The little command group tagged along behind, the FO hunched over staring at his map and figuring out where they were and where the registration points for map fire were, the medic and his aide walking and sorting through their sacks, getting morphine and battle dressings on the top of plasma bags and making sure they had their scissors for cutting open uniforms at hand. The first sergeant reflexively reached onto the left shoulder of his web gear and tapped the compass pouch that instead held his own battle dressing. It would be used first for him if he needed one and he had made sure that everyone else carried one, too. Not everyone still did. But they were slowly converting over to carrying their own.

     The lead recon squad of each Platoon moved as quietly as they could into the thick growth, Lima's squad having tough going and Mike's squad a little easier, the brush being lighter and advancing forward through the trees and brush. The squad moved suspiciously passed an old broken down hootch, empty with holes gaping in the rooks and the squad leader said “Stay the h*** out of the hootch. Could be booby trapped.”

     One of the squad members, a few meters back, said the old saw, “And you know what booby traps catch?” Low voices up and down the squad simultaneously murmured, “Yeah, Bobbies,” and a few chuckles could be heard. 

     They continued forward, across a dry paddy and were almost into another line of trees when from their right-rear, the rattle of AK fire burst through a gap in the trees and scattered the squad as they dove for cover, some forward into the trees, some taking cover behind the dike of the paddy wall.

     "Contact Right! Contact Right!” yelled the squad leader and the M-16 volume of fire swelled as the squad members figured out where the fire was coming from and began returning fire into the tree line through the gap. The deeper thud of the M-60 machine gun carried by the squad chimed in as the gunner got it into action and the squad lead barked, “Semi-Auto! Go to Semi-Auto. Save your ammo, damn it!” He raised his -16 and fired a few rounds toward the tree line to set a good example and walked back down the line. A round whizzed by and he indifferently shrugged it off. The VC couldn't anything at this range And he was more worried about his two cherries at the back of the squad. Had to make sure they got into the fight.

     Lima platoon was progressing more slowly, having just come to the edge of the tree line. They were gazing across at the small copse of trees to their front, southeast of their position, and the platoon leader was beginning to think that maybe they should move over to the next position. The first squad had just stood and their first fire team was just starting to bound forward when they heard off to the east the cackle of automatic weapons fire and then shortly there after, the swelling of return fire, the thudding of a machine gun and the crump of grenade launchers.

     The Lima platoon commander signaled to his second squad on his right to move forward and pumped his fist up and down to signal speed to the squad leader. He heard the squad leader yelling at his men to “Go, Go, Go” and saw the squad rise up from the brush and charge forward toward the group of trees, their guns at the ready, silently rushing through the tall grass and bushes. He was just about to yell to first and third squad to follow when he saw movement in the trees to his forward right and the twinkling of gunfire and then heard the crackle of automatic fire. He saw the green tracers flash through the second squad and two men fell, clasping wounds, as the remainder of the squad fired off to their right toward the source of fire.

     A new fire erupted from the trees directly in front of them and he slid behind a tree as bullets slammed into the tree, bark flying off the surface. He bellowed “Contact Front! Light 'Em Up!” and he was gratified when there was an immediate crash of weapons fire from M-16's, M-60's and M-79's hammering the trees in front of them.

     The leader turned and was about to say something, pointing off to the right, when the FO said, “I'm on it.” Speaking into the handset, he said, “Red Leg 18. Red Leg 18. I am FDC of Lima Platoon, Bravo Company. I authenticate Tango Alpha Four Five” The squad leader heard tinny, electronic speech back from the speaker.

     “Fire Mission”

     “Roger,” came the tinny reply back from the distant voice.

     “From Reg Pt 1. Direction 1800, Right 600, Drop 400. 15-man patrol. Will adjust fire.”

     Listening as he could over the rising gunfire, he heard the coordinates read back and then heard a pause. Then the squad leader heard an electronic bark from the radio's tiny speaker and the FO turned to the platoon leader and said, “Out!” The platoon leader instinctively crouched down and turned to watch for the spotting round as it whistled down from the sky, rumbling overhead. He hollered to his other platoon members. “Incoming!”

     The 105 mm round crashed down in the open field, a plume of white and gray smoke erupting and a second later, the clothing, the dirt and leaves jumped from the shock wave of the round. The FO noted the splash of the round and said, mostly to himself, “Got 'em.” He spoke into the handset again.

     “Add thirty. Left fifty. Fire eight HE for effect.” He smiled as the squad leader raised his eyes at him in question. “That will cook their goose.”

     Clapping his helmet onto his head with his left hand, he yelled, “It's gonna rain!” and he hunkered down behind the big tree he was using for cover. The volume of fire dropped off as his platoon hunted positions of cover and ceased their firing for the artillery coming in. The VC fire also tapered off, the enemy realizing something was up and probably seeking cover also.

Then the rounds began to slam into the trees. 

     The rounds were impact-fused, design to detonated on impact so they buried themselves into the soil and a millisecond later exploded, fountaining dirt, logs, brush, trees, and other items skyward along with the smoke and shrapnel. The Lima platoon leader held his mouth slightly open to equalize the pressure but the concussion still hammered him. He looked at the FO who sat looking at the eruptions, a smile on his face as the concussion waves washed over him, the front of his blouse and his equipment jumping back and forth with each slamming impact.

     “Gotta love it,” he said and he rolled the black coiled cord around the handset and hung the handset from the spring metal clip through his web gear. He settled back using his pack with the radio for a prop and relaxed against it. Pointing toward the wasteland the trees had become and saying, “My work here is complete,” he popped a large red licorice whip he had pulled from his pants cargo pocket into his mouth.

     “Go, Go, Go,” yelled the platoon leader as he grabbed up his M-16 and charged forward. “Let's go get them before they exfil their holes and Di Di out the backside! Come on,” and let forth a burst of -16 fire. He saw other platoon members rising up through the smoke and moving forward with him and saw at least one VC infantryman, blood streaming from his mouth, nose and ears, raising his hands in confusion as a Lima platoon member dragged him out of a spider hole and threw him down, snatching his assault rifle out of the same hole and hurling it away. The soldier slapped the VC soldier down and placed his rifle into the small of his back and shouted, “Don't move, mother- f*****r!” The platoon commander was amazed at how small the VC was and big in comparison the American looked.

     He saw movement in the building off to his left as more artillery slammed into the buildings there. He thought he saw movement there but since there was no fire coming from that location, the fleeing figures were probably mama- and papa-sans who had been unfortunate enough to be caught between the two forces. “Well, Sin Loi,” he thought. Tough sh*t.

     The company commander walked through the grasses, looking over the equipment that had been captured. RPD machine guns, AK-47 machine guns, some SKS carbines, an old German KAR-98 and a couple of Tokarev pistols and about ten thousand rounds of ammuniton. About 250 pounds of rice in US AID bags, which he'd have scattered, and a few Chi-Com hand grenades. He'd have the first sergeant take those away and have the engineers back at base blow them separately. The VC shortened the fuses on grenades so that as soon as you pulled the arming string on the handle like the old German potato masher, they immediately detonated similar to a land mine, rather than a grenade. Maybe the Chi-Coms made them that way. But either way, they were a danger and he didn't want to lose any more men.

     12 US wounded, 4 seriously and he wanted to talk to the Lima platoon leader about leading from the front again. A good leadership tactic but it was going to get him wounded or killed and his Bravo Bulls company had already taken enough platoon leader casualties. They didn't need any more.

 In the distance, he could hear the thumping of helicopters as they descended toward the hastily chopped LZ to the south. Third squad of Mike Platoon had sat out most of the fight supposedly pinned down by fire and so they had been chopping down the small standing growth for the last hour with machetes. Those that didn't happened taken to the first sergeant's suggestion and carried them got to use their e-tools instead. Oh well, he thought. But he suspected that the new buck sergeant in charged needed a little steel put into his spine. There had been a lot of mud on the front of his uniform, like he spent an untoward amount of time on his belly instead of up lead his teams. He would see about maybe having one of the staff sergeants join him and “help” out his command technique or maybe go on a few patrols with him to stiffen him up.

     The pair of CH-47's and single Huey fluttered down into the LZ and he turned his back against the storm of leaves and twigs that gusted up from the rotor blast. The gusts of wind let up as the pilots eased the collectives to neutral and the PP, or Peter Pilot as they called the copilots, jumped out of birds, checking for any holes or fluid leaks. He could see the door gunners in the heavy choppers in the sides with their fifty-caliber machine guns peering at the tree lines. He caught the eyes of one of the pilots, gave him the sign for “All Clear” and saw the pilot speak into his helmet's boom mic. The barrels of the guns dropped toward the ground as the gunners relaxed when they received word on their intercoms of their safety. They could tense up on the flight back.

     “First sergeant!” he called as the thin sergeant walked toward him. “Get the chalks divided by platoons and loaded up. I'll take the three prisoners and the officer we captured in the Huey with me back to base. Don't want anyone thinking they can fly. We'll give them over to the S-2 and see what intel they can find out. We should have had more resistance but I guess the old man knows best.” He looked up as two fast movers, clean and headed home, thundered overhead. He could have joined the Air Force. “But No. Dad was in the Army with George Patton and I was going to follow in his footsteps.” He walked toward the Huey pilot, waving in recognition and looking back, motion with his hand at the group of prisoners and their guards, two men from Lima platoon, a reward for hard fighting. They could ride back with us.

     “Lai Dai. Come on, lets go,” as he headed for the ride home The prisoners, their hands wired behind then with commo wire and the guards with their rifles slung over their shoulders, rose up to follow him.

     The prisoners war was over. But the Americans' wasn't and wouldn't be for a while.

*{Tôi đã nói với bạn tôi nghe nói máy bay trực thăng!
             I told you I heard helicopters!}