07-08-2017, 12:50 AM
I scratch at a nagging rash under my armpit while I lay crouched deep in the green foliage with nine other men. My C.O. says it's just heat rash, but Jackos in B Company says that there's a jungle worm that gets under your skin and lays eggs. I can’t help but wonder if I got one, but everyone in the platoon says the only disease you got to worry about when you’re in country is the clap.
I’ve been been in the thick since April, and only in country since the New Year, so I haven’t had much of a chance to worry about that sort of thing, but when you’re stuck outside in the bush with rain rolling down your fatigues, sometimes a little fantasy can get you through a long night. Sitting here in some ditch 100 miles from Da Nang, I can’t help but daydream about a local girl we passed by on patrol 3 hours ago. Is she out there now?
The girl couldn’t have been more than 19 and she was like a picture of a beauty that fell right out of a National Geographic magazine. She was wearing the light blue smock all the young Viet girls like to show-off. Chen in C Company says they’re called a cheongsam back in Hong Kong, but the locals call the cute little dress an Ao Dai. I call it Heaven.
She stood there standing amidst the swampy reeds of a village rice paddy holding a wicker basket under her arm. The soggy clods of rice seedlings were dripping watery brown mud out of the holes of the basket, smearing her dress, but she didn’t seem to care as she bent hundreds of times, planting one after the other into the ankle deep floodplain. She had paused for a moment to wipe the sweat off her brow and looked at our platoon marching along the levee towards her village and our rendezvous point with B Company 2 miles north.
I had drawn bitch duty and was stuck lugging an M-60 across my shoulders, which I might add I had no clue how to fire. My jacket was unbuttoned in the hopes of catching a little cool air during that humid summer afternoon. I like to think she saw me as I saw her, her eyes taking more than a second glance at my naked chest. However she felt, I drank up the image of that girl like a tall glass of water, and it quenched a thirst I never even knew I had.
Was she out there? Was she hiding just beyond in the bush with a rifle in hand?
The staff sergeant had called for us all to halt after we had walked a half hour outside the girl’s village. Our CO, or Commanding Officer, was a hulking injun who went by Big Chief. The grizzled old timer seemed to revel in the give-and-take of hunting and being hunted by the VC. He claimed he had smelled something not quite right, so the whole platoon had dropped down where they stood and waited for that lingering feeling to escape.
Snap!
What they don’t tell you in Basic is that the jungle is a noisy place. The wind and the rain are constantly whipping through the trees and the hum and scrape of leaves on trunks is everpresent. Even without the screams and cries of battle, it's still a chaos. Great squawking birds the like I never seen in NYC’s Central Park screech at each other and fight for territory. When the damned monsoons actually die down, you can hear ‘em smashing their beaks against each other and tearing feathers with their little talons. The hippy dippy types back home like to say man’s the only violent creature that is willing to kill each other, but here in the jungle, you learn that's not the case. Standing in the jungle with a rifle in hand is like going back to our primal roots. We draftees become like the beasts we’re surrounded by, warring with each other for a few feet of trees. All the while, monkeys howl and chatter at us. Are they screaming to see more blood in this battle royal, or are they just laughing at the futility of the animal kingdom?
Despite all the noise of the jungle, every sense in your body is working overtime. The enveloping green is like one of those paintings at a modern art museum and usually you can barely make heads for tails of what's right in your face. Old timers like Big Chief get by sniffing out for Charlie’s BO and gunpowder, like some sort of panther on the prowl, but us newbies aren’t on that level yet. Through the din of the jungle, you hear everything, and each of us heard that first snap!
Once I heard the sound, it was like every cell in my body knew what was coming. My eyes began to water and the pores in my face shrunk up with anticipation. Someone was approaching and had broken an unseen twig in the process. You could taste the malice like a sour beer left out on the lawn on a hot July day, and I knew the VC approaching in ambush could taste it too.
Are you out there? My beautiful girl in blue? Do you want to spit the taste of hate out of your mouth as much as me, or are you drinking it up like a sweet tonic that gives relief from the lifetime of servitude your people have endured?
Snap!
The first audible footstep soon became two, and within that moment, we know that they know the jig was up. There was only one thing left for both of us to do.
shuuuuffff!
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeOOOOOOOsssssshuuuuuushhhh…
I clutch the ammo belt of the M60 while my best friend Lil’ Damo grips the handles. We freeze in terror, listening to the whistling sound of an arcing mortar spinning through the clouds and then hurtling down to our position.
FAAAAKOOOOOOOM!!
The shock-wave of the explosion rattles the dirt and splinters a nearby tree into a spray of wooden shrapnel. Not far down the line I can hear a panicked cry of pain; the voice moans with a low Georgian twang. Is it Morgan? It must've been Morgan, that poor bastard. I feel fear grip my heart and look towards Lil’ Damo for support. The left side of his face is splashed with blood and his ear is hanging on by a tiny strip of skin. His eyes are bugging out and I can smell the piss running down his leg as the nasally voices of the Viet Cong cry out through the smoke of battle.
“XUNG PHONG!!!”
KAHPA! KAHPA! KAHPA!
The pop-gun like claps of the VC’s Mosin-Nagant rifles smack out as another feminine voice urges from the back of the wave:
“Tiến lên!”
KAHPA! KAHPA! KAHPA!
I feel the bullets wizz by the top of my head as Lil’Damo and I continue to lie low within that ditch. A booming voice bellows out with the husky tenor of a veteran Apache, “Boyars, Fulget, Pullman, Rocket - return fire! Dalton, go scoop up Morgan!”
His heavy boot steps crunch through the jungle underbrush as he races straight for me. He ducks as another shot zings over our heads. In one slick motion Big Chief unholsters his sidearm and fires into the bush.
KAPOW!
KAPOW!
The miserable death gasp of a Viet Cong croaks out in reply. As if urged on by the Staff Sergeant's show of bravado, the platoon let's loose and cuts the jungle across with a wild fury of machine gun fire. A half dozen Vietnamese fighters slump dead to the ground, but the battle cry of “XUNG PHONG!” once again echos through the smoking forest.
Big Chief stoops over Lil Damo and I, grabbing a fist full of collar. “You fire that goddamn machine gun or I'll skin your greasy wap ass myself!”
KAHPA!
I can see the bullet's kinetic energy splash into the Staff Sergeant's skull and exit out the other end. I expected it to play out like the cartoons, but the C.O. didn't fly 10 feet across the jungle. Instead, he just lingers there and sways for two seconds, as if he had one too many tequilas back in Saigon and only needed a little wind to bowl him over.
He crumbles.
Lil Damo seems to snap out of his trance and with quivering legs he stands up and begins to flee in the opposite direction.
KAHPA!
KAHPA!
I duck down low into the jungle roots and can smell the churned up soil, the charred BBQ scent of Morgan, and the shit emptying into the big injun’s pants. I can see my chest panting, heaving, and I barely register Damo dropping to the ground with two fresh holes in his back.
For once, I can't see the green of the trees. I see my mother. She's buying me an ice cream on Coney Island with the pocket change she earned turning tricks for the neighborhood pimp. The sea breeze smells good and I can feel the rough but comforting fabric of her dress as I hug her, sloping my vanilla cone on her hem, but neither of us caring because we're so happy. A halting, sharp feminine voice pulls me from the edge.
“Quyết tử cho Tổ quốc quyết sinh!”
I roll onto my belly and look down the barrel of the M-60 machine gun. It stands loaded and ready on it's tripod feet. Knowing nothing else I grip the handles and squeeze on the triggers.
DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH
The instrument of doom belches out dozens of massive 7.63mm caliber slugs in quick succession. My eyes are shut, but the gun has already been placed in front of the charging revolutionaries.
DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH
I squeeze the triggers again until the vibration of the weapon is so strong I can hold on no longer. Coolant hisses from the weapon and the jungle is silent while I pause. Even my own comrades have ceased fire in awe. I open my eyes finally and look down the iron sights.
The girl in the blue ao dai dress is standing amidst the shredded jungle. She clutches her kidneys with one hand, but a horrible blackish red stain has spread far beyond what her delicate fingers can contain. She looks towards our platoon, and once again I wonder if we stared into each other's souls for a moment. Her eyes show pain and the disappointment that comes with a premature death. Beyond it, hidden within her knitted brow is some other complex emotion. Her eyes reflect mine and seem to call me a vile betrayer. I squeeze the triggers.
DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH