Death in the Jungle Read online

  I glanced at the woman in the sampan. She was still huddled over her parcel. The boat was a lame duck, seemingly drifting in slow motion, with bullets tearing up the water behind it.

  “Don’t shoot the boat!” I shouted, wishing I could play God to reach out and pluck the woman and the baby, or babies, to safety. I yelled again, and the woman in the sampan turned her head and stole a look back toward me. I was sure she couldn’t pick me out, but I could see even her fearful eyes. A second later, she hunched over and hid her face in the bundle on her lap.

  As weapons continued to pound on both sides of me, Mr. Meston charged up from the rear and started firing his M-16 across and into the fifty-meter-wide stream. One of BT2 Moses’s 40mm HE grenades exploded on the opposite bank, followed by a second loud explosion. M-60 machine gun noise banged the hell out of my eardrums. I added to the ruckus as I blasted the water where I had last seen the enemy’s head.

  Moments later, as the assault began to diminish, another head popped up for air near the opposite shore. Without shilly-shally, all SEAL team weapons went full bore. A fusillade of bullets drove the head back down.

  Not wanting to lose the sampan, Mr. Meston yelled at me to go get it. I laid Sweet Lips in a bush and grabbed the big pair of duck fins. Quickly, I pulled them on over my coral booties and slid my body off the bank and into the stream. The water was immediately refreshing as I breaststroked toward the boat. Maybe I could play God, after all. I heard a baby crying, and I was determined to rescue it.

  Heavy gunfire suddenly erupted behind me. I looked ahead across the water and saw the two male gooks trying to claw their way up the riverbank to escape into the jungle. But the bank was a nightmare, steep and slick with mud. The men slipped and slid as bullets splattered all around them. Pieces of flesh were torn from their bodies, yet they continued to scramble upward. Miraculously, after ten seconds more of all hell breaking loose, the two made it up the slippery bank and fell into the thick brush, but they left trails of blood and entrails behind them. I would have bet a year’s pay that neither of them would ever see another paycheck. I knew dead men when I saw them, even if they were last seen still crawling.

  I tried to catch up with the drifting boat as it rapidly floated toward a bend in the stream. When I swam to within forty feet of the sampan, I saw the woman who had jumped overboard pulling it by the bow toward the far bank. I yelled back at my teammates, and Mr. Schrader took a shot at her with his M-16. She let go and swam for the riverbank. I thought about trying to catch her, but I was too loaded down to seriously attempt it. I forgot about her and stroked for the sampan.

  Just as I reached the boat, the woman in the water made it to the muddy bank. As she scratched her way up, someone shot her and wounded her, but she managed to roll into the brush and disappear.

  I grabbed the side of the sampan with both hands and pulled myself out of the water and into the boat, being careful not to capsize it. I looked hopefully at the woman who was bent over onto her own lap, and my stomach sank. There was a bullet hole in the small of her back and a ring of blood surrounding it.

  A newborn baby drew my attention at the bow of the sampan as it cried bloody murder. I crawled over to it and picked it up from a blanket and cradled it in my arms. The baby was naked and was a boy. He had blood slowly flowing from a leg wound in which his left calf muscle has been laid open its full length to the bone by a bullet. More ghastly still, he had pieces of someone’s brain on his face.

  I looked back at the dead woman, and from that angle I could see part of her head was blown open. My eyes riveted on a large piece of her skull bone lying on the sampan deck. I desperately fought to keep from crying, realizing I must control my emotions. I stared despairingly at the screaming, tiny baby held snugly against my chest, and tears fell from my cheeks and onto his. My heart slammed heavily against my rib cage, and I felt an ache inside of it. The pain intensified as my tears increased, until my whole being wanted to scream, “War is hell!”

  Through my tears, I saw Ty, the Vietnamese SEAL, treading water as he held onto the edge of the boat. I moved my weight to the starboard bow to balance the sampan as Ty pulled himself over the port side. Once inside, Ty picked up a paddle from the deck and began paddling us back toward the ambush site. He also had noticed a small pile of papers on the sampan deck, which he scooped up, folded, and slipped inside his wet shirt.

  I did my best to wipe away my tears and water droplets from my face, knowing I was smearing the cammo paint all over. Then I looked again at the dead woman and took heed of a bundle squashed beneath her chest. I scrambled over to her body, and while holding the baby boy with my left arm, I lifted her drooping upper torso with my right. A second newborn baby was revealed.

  I allowed the torso to flop backward, then I removed the baby from the lap. As I curled my right arm around the tiny body, which also was a boy, I saw that its head was dangerously swollen. It was obvious that the baby had had too much weight crushing down on his head, and even though he was breathing, he may have been without oxygen for a while beneath his mother’s body.

  With the baby in my left arm whimpering, bleeding down my side and going into shock, and the baby in my right arm lying limp against my chest, I felt like the lowest bastard on earth. Here I was taking these injured three- or four-week-old babies away from their mothers, one of whom was dead and the other wounded and, no doubt, fighting for her own life. If the two NVA soldiers were the respective fathers, I knew they wouldn’t be taking on any bottle-feeding duties. The baby boys, then, if they themselves survived, would never know their parents.

  As Ty continued paddling us closer to shore, my sudden, sole consolation was that I knew in my heart that I hadn’t wanted anything like that to happen. If I could have, I’d have prevented it. The worst thing was that deep inside my guts, I knew it would happen again, in Vietnam, to me. That was the cold, stark reality of the damnable war. God forgive us all.

  Doc met us as we hit the shore, and I gave him the baby with the bleeding leg. By the time I climbed out of the sampan with the other baby, Doc was already applying a bandage to the wound. I showed him the swollen head of the baby I was holding, and Doc took the little fellow out of my arms.

  I felt somewhat dizzy, so I just walked away. Most of my gear was at the rear, and since our presence in the T-10 was compromised, I had to retrieve my gear and my shotgun and “get out of Dodge” with the rest of the platoon. Mr. Meston had called on the radio for Mighty Moe to come and extract us, so it wouldn’t be long. In the meantime, I had to reload Sweet Lips and get prepared for a possible enemy counterattack.

  After slinging on my gear, I stole my way to Mr. Meston, who was using the radio to direct the extraction boats to us. I asked him to call for a medevac (medical-personnel-on-board helo) for the injured babies, then I ambled over to help Doc. Together we tried to feed the babies some water from a canteen, but neither wanted to drink. I noted with some surprise that the baby with the leg wound still had good color, as his whole body was flushed. The baby with the mashed head, however, was very pale and his breathing irregular. He needed a hospital and fast.

  A few more minutes went by, then I heard Mighty Moe and the LCPL busting in with their powerful diesel engines roaring. As the noise got closer, I was amazed at the courage of the crews, risking it all in broad daylight to get our bared butts out of danger. They were coming in like gunslingers, riding down the main street of town for all to see and to shoot at. They were exposed and vulnerable, but still they came, as ready to fight as a riled tomcat at a dog show.

  Mr. Meston guided Mighty Moe right to us, and not far behind I saw the LCPL coming down the river. Mighty Moe eased her bow into the bank while letting down the bow ramp. As the ramp touched the shore, the ten men of Foxtrot Platoon, with Doc and me each carrying a baby, quickly boarded the boat. We boarded with confidence, believing we would not only be secure on Mighty Moe but that we could stand off any force that wished to confront us.

  The coxswain re
versed the engine and carefully maneuvered the boat away from the shore. As we backed up, he slowly turned the bow back into the current, then proceeded to accelerate forward. The LCPL hugged the far bank and allowed us to pass, then fell in behind and followed our tails out of there.

  The procession traveled less than two hundred meters when some kind of a large round hit Mighty Moe’s starboard bow. Whatever it was, it was a dud, as it failed to detonate. Nevertheless, Charlie had shot at us from the riverbank, and he would pay big time.

  All six of Mighty Moe’s .50-caliber machine guns immediately opened up, with three on starboard and three on portside blasting the respective shorelines. The LCPL’s two gunners opened fire, one with a mounted M-60 machine gun and the other with a Honeywell 40mm, which was a Gatling-gun affair. All .30-calibers started barking and everything in our hands slammed away at the jungle. Two helo gunships appeared overhead and joined the unbelievable uproar, spraying M-60 machine gun fire and exploding 2.75-inch rockets on the river banks. In all, two dozen weapons were simultaneously raining hell on some poor, dumb slobs who had been imprudent enough to have thrown a brick at our beloved Mighty Moe.

  Whoever the dummies were, they deserved whatever hit them. But my eardrums were getting trounced by a hurricane of sound.

  Our assault on the jungle was incredible. Not only were leaves and branches being blown into the air by the onslaught, but whole trees were being cut in half and were falling onto the riverbanks and into the water.

  All kinds of cartridge cases and hulls flew everywhere. They were bouncing off the deck, sailing overboard, even hitting me in the arms and legs. I glanced at the babies and saw dozens of casings all around them. The boy with the enlarged head had one resting on his chest. His slanted eyes were barely open, and I wondered if he would live to see a better day.

  After another half minute of intense landscaping activity, we vacated the premises. Doc and I cleared away the empty cartridges and sat down on the deck of the boat. I gently lifted the baby with the swollen head and cuddled him against my chest. He was limp and almost lifeless. Doc held the other baby who, despite his injured leg, had looked pretty good before the heavy offensive. Now he looked colorless.

  I dropped my head and closed my eyes for a minute as we sped along the stream. I heard only the ringing of a giant bell inside my head. Between every peal, I saw the brave mother on the sampan bent over and protecting her baby, and then I saw her brains scattered everywhere.

  I opened my eyes and noticed the helo gunships were staying right over us. The boys in the skies were making sure we didn’t run into cables tied across the stream to hang us up, to be followed by an ambush. Once again, I was grateful to those courageous men above.

  When we reached the main river, a medevac arrived and hovered over Mighty Moe’s protective overhead. As Doc and I climbed on top of the cover over the well deck, ready to hand the two babies to the helicopter crew, one of the MST guys took off his green shirt and tossed it to me. Doc and I wrapped the babies in the shirt, then lifted the bundle up to awaiting arms.

  A few moments later, the medevac flew away. I watched it go until it was out of sight.

  I sat down on the deck and Doc dropped down beside me. Both of us had blood on our clothes. He put his arm around me. I looked into his eyes, and he looked into mine, just for a moment. We said nothing. The events of the day had already spoken too much.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Mission Rehearsal

  “Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

  John Donne, Devotions

  DATE: 6 October 1967

  TIME: 0700H to 1930H

  COORDINATES: YS023743U

  UNITS INVOLVED: MST-3

  TASK: Simulate method of capturing VC from sampan

  METHOD OF INSERTION: LCM-6

  METHOD OF EXTRACTION: Boston Whalers

  TERRAIN: Flat, tall grass, underwater at high tide

  MOON: 1/2

  WEATHER: Clear

  SEAL TEAM PERSONNEL:

  Lt. Meston, Patrol Leader/ Rifleman, M-16

  Lt. (jg) Schrader, Ass’t Patrol Leader/Rifleman, M-16

  RM2 Smith, Point/Swimmer/Rifleman, Shotgun

  MM2 Funkhouser (sick)

  BT2 McCollum, Ordnance/Grenadier, M-79

  BT2 Moses, Grenadier, M-79

  ADJ2 Markel, Radioman/Rifleman, M-16

  ADJ2 Flynn, Automatic Weapons, M-60

  HM2 Brown, Corpsman/Radioman/Rifleman, M-16

  SM3 Katsma, Rifleman, M-16

  LDNN Ty, Swimmer/Rifleman, M-2 Carbine

  LDNN Sat, Rifleman, M-16

  LDNN Thanh, Rifleman, M-16

  AZIMUTHS: 190 degrees-300m

  ESCAPE: 010 degrees

  PHASE LINES: None

  CODE WORDS: None

  I ate breakfast at 0545 hours, my mind drowning in my coffee. I was still haunted by our mission of four days earlier. Mr. Meston had told me both of the injured babies were doing well, but somehow I didn’t believe him. I thought he was just trying to make me feel better. And even if the babies were fine, their parents were not. All four of them found out in a big way they weren’t bulletproof, let alone immortal.

  The day before, I had practiced karate exercises for an hour, then had played two hours of volleyball in an effort to take my mind off thoughts of death. I had been semisuccessful until I had picked up my laundry from Nga’s. While walking back to the base, the feel and smell of the clean clothes had stood in stark contrast to the feel and smell of this dirty war.

  “Lighten up, Hawkeye!” Katsma cheered me as he sat down at my table. “Today’s another day.”

  I managed a smile. “You’re right,” I said, shaking off the blues. Kats’s friendliness always had a positive effect on me.

  Katsma dug into his biscuits and gravy. “Eat good,” he said. “Today’s practice evolution might get long. After all, you’re gonna have to try to capture me, and I won’t make it easy.”

  We were rehearsing the capture of a Viet Cong from the T-10 area, from whom we would extract good intelligence information. We knew there were big enemy units in the T-10, and we needed to find out where they were. The area was so thick that just about the only way to find them was to be told their location.

  “Don’t be so competitive,” I told Kats. “This is only a rehearsal. We can get serious when we’re doing the real thing.”

  Kats looked at me with a mischievous grin, then shoved a whole biscuit into his mouth. The gravy ran out the sides of his lips, and we both chuckled.

  At 0700 hours, twelve of us boarded Mighty Moe for the hour trip down the Long Tau River to our point of insertion. Two Boston Whalers followed us to our objective. Upon arrival, we inserted onto the riverbank, observing all security measures, leaving the boats in the main channel to await our call for extraction.

  I took the point and began moving parallel to a small stream called the Vam Sat. Each step was relatively easy, as the terrain was flat and sprouting only tall grass. The ground was soggy due to being underwater during high tides.

  I didn’t sense the usual tension as I patroled, as I was aware this was simply a practice op in a relatively secure administrative training area; however, I still had to play everything straight because one never knew for sure where the enemy may lurk. I certainly didn’t want to trip a little gookish surprise booby trap.

  As we traveled the three hundred meters to our simulated ambush site, I spotted three ducks flying low over our heads. Their wings were spread and curved downward for landing. Suddenly they changed their plans, flapped their wings and soared higher. Obviously, they had spied their most feared enemy: the 12-gauge pump shotgun in my hands. I’d seen this fast-feathered reaction a multitude of times back home in Texas: the quacks had moved in, prepared to light, then up had popped the mouth of the dreaded monster from the lagoon. No duck that loved life needed more than a split-second glance before he
freaked and beat the hell out of the air, bound for dizzying heights. When dealing with me, many a surprised duck had died with that “look of horror” on his beak. That morning, however, those lucky duckies got away, never to realize that strict noise discipline had saved their tail feathers.

  About a hundred meters from our ambush site, I reached a creek. I signaled Mr. Meston, and he signaled “danger point” to the others. Katsma positioned himself on our right flank with his M-16 rifle. McCollum moved to our left flank with his M-79 grenade launcher. Mr. Meston, as always, moved up behind me as I stepped down into the creek bottom, which was only three feet deep with water.

  The creek was five meters wide and easy to cross. When I climbed out on the opposite bank, I made a short recon, finding nothing of concern. I then waved the others across.

  McCollum stepped into the water first, following my exact path, which I had found to be safe. Katsma came second. When they reached my side, they set up on right and left flanks. The rest of the men filed across in a well-spaced line.

  We patrolled in a southerly direction for perhaps fifty meters, paralleling the direction of the meandering creek for that short distance. Then Mr. Meston pointed for me to go west, which meant we had to cross the creek again.

  We handled the creek crossing in the same manner as earlier, then moved sixty meters to the Rach La and the ambush site. Following the previous day’s briefing instructions, eight of us set up on the eastern bank of the large stream. ADJ2 Markel, with the radio, positioned himself a few meters in back of Mr. Meston. Mr. Schrader, ADJ2 Flynn, and LDNN Thanh set up as rear security.

  With everyone in place, Katsma, who was going to play the part of a VC bad guy in our rehearsal, slipped down into the stream and began swimming across the twenty-foot-deep water. I admired him from my position at Mr. Meston’s left side. His strokes were powerful in the swift current.