The War: Ripcord



Written by USMC Lance

Inspiration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYLm18PFcwM

''**WARNING: THIS FANFIC CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE, CRUDE HUMOR, AND BLOOD & GORE. READER DISCRETION IS ADVISED**''

''This is a Military/War story, set during the Battle of Fire Support Base Ripcord during March-July 1970. This was the last major U.S. operation of the Vietnam War. The story follows the U.S. Paratroopers of 3rd Brigade (Now 4th Brigade), 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment in the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army.''

Please enjoy and feedback is always appreciated :)

NOTE: Military times in this story is when the main event or action occurs.

Chapter One - Vietnam
0700 Hours (7:00 AM)

April 4, 1970

FSB Ripcord, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

0700. We have just landed at Fire Support Base Ripcord. The air was hot and made us all sweaty. A fresh new platoon of GIs, of which I was in, were deployed here to replace a platoon that were wiped out a few months back. I was nervous.

I wasn't having anything going in my life. I lived in New Jersey and I didn't do much. I lived with my mom and little brother Jerry. I played Basketball in High School. I was pretty good on the team and we won a decent number of games.

Mom was thinking that I should go to college and have a future but once I noticed how much college was, It was out of the question.

I would have to buy clothes for Jerry because Mom never had the money and Dad was living with one of his freaking 17 year old girlfriend's in Miami, Florida. Dad was not a very big part of my life, he divorced mom when I was 6. He totally excluded us from his life and I hated him for it.

Then in late 1969, I received my draft notice. I was shocked and mom was angry and sad,

"How can they do this to you!??" she had said, "You're only 18! You're just a boy!"

I never had any interest in joining the Army. I just wanted to be one of those regular middle-class guys with a nice family and good job. I had really wanted to be a seismologist, a scientist who studied earthquakes because I loved science class during High School. Maybe even a science teacher. I ruled both out because most people I would tell would just laugh.

"You think you, a brother, is gonna be a scientist?! Haha, you real funny man." One guy I hanged out with at the local park had said. I told him I was serious and he even laughed harder. He finally stopped and apologized. He said It was not the kind of thing he had thought of me doing in life.

It hurted me. I never even thought people had such low expectations for me.

There were dudes all across America burning their draft cards on live TV and fleeing to Canada to avoid fighting in Nam. When I got the draft notice, I actually considered it but I deemed it crazy and we wouldn't have the money to flee to Canada. I started realizing how much I wasn't doing anything in life and I just needed to get away from home. I was actually starting to look forward for service in the military.

So I took basic training at Fort Polk, Louisana at the famous Tigerland which was a training area intended to be a simulation of combat in Vietnam. Then I chose my MOS, which was 11B. 11B also known as 11th Bravo is the basic Infantryman. If you were in infantry, It was more than likely you were getting deployed to Vietnam.

My platoon got the orders to deploy to Vietnam. We had landed at Tan Son Nhut Airbase on the 1st in a C-130. Our platoon were assigned to a replacement company for a few days, before waiting for our orders to report to our combat unit. Then at 0600 today, we got up in formation and Captain Scott, our replacement company leader, gave us the orders to report to the unit.

"So this platoon will be assigned to 2nd Battalion of the 506st Infantry in the 101st Airborne Division, located at Fire Support Base Ripcord in the A Shau Valley. This is seemingly because this platoon has received airborne and parachute training, making it a very well eligible airborne unit. You men should be proud to be assigned to a very decorated and honorable unit."

Okay? He made it seem like we were special forces or something, when all we did was just parachute into areas.

"Make sure to not fuck with these guys. They've been there for a month and been searching for hardcore NVA all over the damn jungles. They ain't got no time for new-comers trying to make a name for themselves."

"So the thing is, the A Shau Valley is one of the most heavily contested areas in South Vietnam. Charlie [North Vietnamese] drives trucks down there."

"The 101st is tasked with stopping these NVA and VC from coming in through Laos into the A Shau. You people better not do any stupid mistakes, or your ass is gonna be in a casket going home."

"The choppers are waiting for you and you'll be at Ripcord at an estimate at 0700 Hours."

"Good luck." He smiled and saluted. Then he walked away.

A Lieutenant led us to the choppers where he checked off our names. There were five-seven choppers, each containing our men. We got on and the choppers lifted off.

I looked down and saw the fading Tan Son Nhut Airbase, into a then sea of green slopes, moutains, rivers, streams.

We had landed at 0700 at a designated 'heli pad', which was nothing more than low-lying grass. We got out and the air got hotter. Much hotter. This was Vietnam.

Firebase Ripcord was located on a mountain top which was surrounded by nearby mountains in every direction. The mountain top was slightly sloped sideways so the hooches at the base were a little tilted to the side. I was assigned to Alpha Company, Fourth Platoon.

I went to a hooch, which were the long cabin-looking living quarters for us. I sat down on a bunk and then a guy came in. He was a brother like me, had a baby face, and had a lot of freckles.

"Hey you, you in this platoon?" Freckles asked.

"Yeah." I said

"Oh okay. We the new guys in this shit."

"Right on."

"Yo where you from man?" He came over with his ruck and sat at the edge of my bunk. He took off his flak jacket and stretched his arms out.

"New Jersey."

"Oh yeah? What they got in New Jersey?" Freckles said.

"Nothing much. The only thing they got is shitty cops, that's all." I replied.

"No man, you got to come to Oakland. Over there they got them crazy fuckers called the Black Panthers. When the police kill a brother, those Black Panthers go crazy and start tearing up the place." His name tag read "WILLIAMS".

"Anyways, what you do back home?"

"I played Basketball and I wanted to go college,"

"You were drafted?" Williams asked.

"Yeah."

"Wow, sucks man. I volunteered for this shit." He said.

"Why?"

"Because there wasn't nothing to do back home man. Just boring. The only thing I saw were those damn hippies and 18 year olds like us who were protesting the war. Plus I figure, why should I be staying here drinking beer when GIs are dying in 'Nam?"

"Yep, you have to be educated to think like that." I said. Then he winked.

A Lieutenant came in our hooch. His name tag read "McDonald"

"Who are you guys? The FNGs?"

"What's an FNG?" I asked.

"Don't sweat it, you already answered my question."

Then 4 other guys came in. Our squad leader was Staff Sergeant Clarke who had dirty blonde hair. We had a Corporal who was called David Bell who was second in charge of the squad.

"Okay, so you're all here. We gotta do a quick roll call, and please gentlemen, make it short and brief. It's not a Life Story, It's just answering when your name is called. Got it?" the Lieutenant said. He made his voice seemed like he had more authority and confidence than he actually did.

I answered with 'Steven Perrier' when my name was called and then Lieutenant McDonald gave us a quick pep talk.

"First, no excessive running of the mouth about anti-war bullshit. Most of you enlisted so that is your problem. If you're drafted, you chose to show up, you could have escaped to Canada or any of those places."

"Next, please keep your weapons clean. You don't keep em clean and I almost guarantee you that Charlie is gonna get your ass."

"Finally, no discrimination. There are no niggers, 'white boys', 'black boys', or honkies in this platoon. You're all equally the same thing, paratroopers."

Then he outlined the main objective.

"Okay FNGs, you're here to search and destory NVA mortar and recoilless fire positions, about 3000 Meters from the FSB. We have been attacked by these weapons since the initial assault to occupy the base in March. These guys have been relentless. We've finally been able to attempt to attack these positions after unsatisfying, brutal thunderstorms."

"Our main objective was to attempt an offensive against the NVA 803rd and 29th Regiments in the valley but as you can see, It has not been going to well. So the mission will be starting next week. Hopefully this shit turns out well. Good luck." He smiled and left the hooch.

"At least he ain't an asshole," said a short Specialist Five we called Thomas.

"Yo ya'll go to sleep. It's 7:00 AM, too damn early for conversations." Sergeant Clarke said.

I was tired. I buried my head on my bunk and fell asleep. I didn't even bother to say anything to the other guys.

Chapter Two - Sitting around...
1100 Hours (11:00 AM)

April 9, 1970

Fire Support Base Ripcord, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

We didn't do nothing. Just sat there and watched the news. We learned more about each other as well. Sergeant Clarke was from Chicago,

"Man, I got drafted before my ass even started drinking." He laughed.

"So I reported to Fort Polk at Tigerland, right? The Lieutenant tells me I can be with the 1st Infantry but I was gonna straight to combat in Vietnam,"

"What you did?" asked a dude we called Greene. He was pale, and had light-brown hair. His rank was Private and was Machine Gunner of the squad.

"I said I didn't wanna go to Vietnam and he gave me a secondary choice. He told me I could go to take NCO and Airbourne training for a year to skip a tour in Vietnam, then get assigned to an airmobile or air assault unit. So I was totally up for it. I figured the war was gonna be over in year or we would kick the commies ass so bad they would just give up but boy was I wrong..."

Then he looked up at me.

"Hey you. What's your name, soldier?" He asked.

"Perrier."

"Oh yeah. Where you from man?"

"Jersey."

"How you get in this mess?"

"I got drafted. God bless the Selective Service.... psh."

"Hmph? Well stay on your shit man. You don't wanna be the last one to die in this mess."

"Yes sir." I smiled, I just had to.

BOOM

The artillery round landed 30-50 meters from us. The whole fuckin' hooch shaked like a god-damn earthquake.

"Get down, fuckin' AMBUSH!!! Cpl. Bell dove for cover.

"Move it, move it!" Sergeant Clarke was running while firing his M16.

The guys from Weapons Platoon were on the howitzers, which were the big artillery guns. We had a stockade of artillery shells, organized into 10 piles. Each pile had about 50 shells.

Me and Greene ran to a bunker where he set up the M60. I was his feeder. The sounds of the weapon echoed in the distance, rattling my ear drums. I was peeking my head back and fourth with my M16. I finished one clip and jammed another one back in.

"Hey give me the bandoliers! Give me the fuckin' M60 ammo! Hurry up you fuckin' idiot!" He screamed at me. He was pulling my leg (not literally) and I was pissed.

"Go fuck yourself, man." I protested back.

"FUCK YOU TOO! GOD-DAMN NIGGER!" He bounced back.

"What you call me?"

I jumped on him and punched him in the face. We were tumbling around the bunker, fighting, like children. The sounds of artillery were in the distance.

Lieutenant McDonald jumped in the bunker and stopped the fighting.

"What the fuck is the matter with you?! You Fuckin' New Guys! We're paratrooper" an artillery round landed nearby and McDonald flinched. So that was what FNG meant.

"Look, we're paratroopers man! Get your shit together and let's kill these Charlie! Follow me!" Greene and I quickly glanced at each other. We jumped out of the bunker and started following Lt. McDonald across the mountain. We stopped at a foxhole where Greene setted up the '60 again and started raking a nearby hilltop, presumebably where we were taking fire from.

Then It was over. Just three minutes. Sergeant Clarke came over and said Williams had been hit.

I saw Thomas and Corporal Bell lifting his body out of a bunker. They laid his body down and began administrating aid. He had had an artillery round land next to him. Amputated both arms and shredded his flak jacket. He had a deep, burning wound in his right leg as well.

"C'mon man, hang in there." Thomas said. Williams was choking up blood like crazy. He couldn't speak. He was trying to find his arms and then Thomas picked up two, bloody mangled limbs.

"I'm sorry. I can't help you. It's just too much blood. Here is your fuckin' arms, here they fuckin' are. I'm just so sorry." The expression on Williams' face is something I will never forget for the rest of my life. He was trembling.

It all ended eventually. They put the two limbs on his chest, wrapped his body in a poncho and we called in a Huey.

"See this is what fucking happens man. When we get FNGs." Sergeant Clarke said. His eyes were glistening with tears, and I lit his cigarette for him.

Lieutenant McDonald, sat there, with his hands shaking. Me and Greene went to our hooch and said nothing. Bell and Thomas were sitting next to Lieutenant McDonald, looking into the distance.

Clarke silently smoked his cigarette. Nothing was said, nothing.

Chapter Three - Pain
1455 Hours (2:55 PM) 

April 13, 1970

Fire Support Base Ripcord, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

I couldn't stop thinking about him. I couldn't get him out of my head. I just couldn't fucking get him out of my head. His expression, him looking at his mangled arms; It changed, It just changed you. I was scared, maybe all the FNGs like me were scared, I'm not sure.

"It just happened so quick, man." Greene said.

"Its these fucking dinks, man. These bastards have no mercy, they don't give a shit." Bell replied. He was putting on a new camouflauge cover he got on his M1 Helmet.

Then the squad got up and went to the makeshift showers. Greene stayed and came over. He put his hand on my shoulder.

"Look, I'm sorry man. I'm sorry for calling you that shit [nigger] and sorry for Williams."

"I just can't stop thinking about him, man. I just can't stop thinking about him." I felt I was about to cry but I didn't.

"C'mon, you'll get over it. Let's go."

Yeah, right.

We got two new brothers in the squad. One dude was from Cheyenne, Wyoming. He was tall, big, and dark-skinned. He was a mean looking dude. His name was Ronnie Wallace and he was a Corporal. This guy looked like he hit the weight room like 10 times a week. When me and Greene were struggling to lift ammo boxes onto a truck earlier, he took two with both arms and easily lifted them on with no help. He walked away without saying nothing.

The other dude was from Montgomery, Alabama called Brandon Rivera. He was half-black, half-latino, and he was a Private First Class. He also stated he had some caucasian descendents. The dude looked odd; spikey black-hair, clean shaven, tanned light-brown skin, and spoke with no accent, although he sounded southern when he pronounced one or two words. He looked like the type of "wise guy" who had all the girls and liked to prove everyone wrong but I guess the Army changed him because he did not speak a lot around us.

Mail call. Thomas got a letter stating he was accepted into Harvard University. We all clapped for him.

"Hey, good job man." I high fived him, "Thanks." He replied.

"What are you gonna study?" Bell asked.

"Haha, you know it man. Medicine!"

"Fuckin' A!" Sergeant Clarke said.

"Just make sure you don't wear your uniform.... Those Harvard faggots all hate the war and hate us." Wallace said. He was cleaning his boots with some disinfecting detergent.

"What the hell do you know?" Bell stood up and everyone started watching. Sergeant Clarke was looking closely about what was about to happen.

"What I know, Is what I see and hear, buddy." Wallace sarcastically saluted.

"Oh yeah, black boy? Last time I checked you drug-addict brothers couldn't even afford an education."

"What did you just say to me?" Wallace stood up and flung across the hooch walls towards Bell. Fight.

Wallace literally picked Bell up and threw him outside the hooch, where he landed and broke some ammo boxes. Ouch. Then Bell got up and kicked Wallace straight in the groin. Then they started beating on each other, back and forth. There was blood everywhere. They tussled on the ground, blood mixing in with the mud, turning into a brownish-reddish color. While Sergeant Clarke and the rest of us were trying to break it up, Wallace actually elbowed him and fractured his nose.

The blood was like a waterfall out of his nose. Clarke ran to the latrine, screaming in pain. It finally took ten soldiers to break the ruckus up.

"You people better stop this shit," Lieutenant McDonald was holding both by the collar. Bell lunged forward towards Wallace.

"Slack off solder. Now you two shake hands." They both reluctantly shaked hands and It was over. Then I saw our company commander, Captain Barrile, asking McDonald what had happened. McDonald told him and then he shaked his head. We went back to our hooch.

The other mail was Sergeant Clarke got a letter from his girlfriend Margaret. It was a real sad letter.

"Some shit about how those assholes back home protesting our asses."

"Where's back home?" Greene asked.

"Boston. She said she didn't believe anything they said about us and how she will always loved me." Sgt. Clarke smiled, and I could tell he was relieved that she said that.

"You know what's funny," Rivera was eating melted strawberry ice cream he had stored in this cheap fridge. "That not only they protesting us, but they protesting Nixon too." Oh, the irony.

We all looked at him and realized It was the first thing he said all day. He smiled.

"Well, I volunteered for this shit, man." Bell said

We were laughing.

"Haha, how so?" Thomas asked.

"I was in college, man. It was fucking boring, same shitty routine. Wake up, go to class, eat, go home. Same shit." as he was saying this, he was passing lotion on his arms.

"So there were guys in our college burning their draft cards, which seemed like bullshit to me. Here we are, the people who get to have good food and good hygiene, while these guys in Vietnam getting their asses handed to them. The protesting was getting me pissed off, so I just enlisted in the Army back in late '68. Took basic and got assigned to the 101st. Deployed here to Chu Lai in November 1969 and got transferred to Ripcord in March of this year."

"Wow. Real solid thinkin', soldier." Greene laughed, and then we did.

Then we started playing card games. We played blackjack and I won 10 dollars. Staff Sergeant Clarke had no luck at all, as he lost $20 to all of us.

"Fuck this shit. You guys are fucking cheaters!" He raged quit and stormed out of the hooch.

"C'mon 'Sarge! It's okay." We were laughing and then he came back and layed down on his bunk.

Then Clarke wanted to watch some color TV and Thomas said he heard Sergeant Grear from 1st Squad had a color TV. We went to their hooch and we asked him if he could borrow it.

"Nope, you gotta buy it, man." He was smoking dope.

"C'mon pothead, just give me the god-damn TV."

Then Grear raised his voice, "Look man, don't be calling no pothead. You don't know me like that. Now if you want the TV, you got to buy it."

"Fuck it," We paid $10 for it.

Grear grinned and said, "Glad doing business with you, Staff Sergeant."

We left their hooch. Guys around the camp were carrying supplies and filling sandbags. The sound of helicopters and artillery were in the distance.

We got back and turned on the TV. Thankfully the footage was in color. Clarke was flipping through the channels. It was mostly the same old garbage on the news. Stuff about the planned Camobian Campaign, the New York Knicks in the NBA Playoffs (they went 60-22 in the regular season), and the numerous protests across the country, including a demonstration in Washington DC. There was also news that the Apollo 13 mission to the moon had had a serious explosion in the oxygen tank and the astronauts were trying their best to stay alive. The news reporters kept replaying:

Jack Swigert - "Okay Houston-- we've had a problem here."

Jack Lousma, Mission Control -"This is Houston... say again please?"

Jim Lovell - "Uh Houston, we've had a problem. We've had a MAIN B BUS UNDERVOLT."

Then Clarke found The Ed Sullivan Show. They were giving a taped episode of Ed interviewing The Rolling Stones. And then they played You Can't Always Get What You Want. Their lead singer, Mick Jagger, looked like he had done 10 lines of cocaine.

"See, fucking hippy. Look at his face, man." Wallace said.

"Yeah. Bet he is protesting against us in the night, man!" Greene joked.

We kept flipping through the channels and then we started watching The Brady Bunch. It was a sitcom.

Nothing was done for the rest of the day except eat, play football around HQ hooch, and then finish the day with sleeping.

Chapter Four - Back in the shit.
1500 Hours (3:00 PM) 

April 20, 1970

Fire Support Base Ripcord, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

Patrol, or at least what It seemed like. Our battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Andre Lucas, sent us the orders. Cpt. Barrile, gave us the briefing.

"Gentlemen, what you're gonna do is set up an ambush near an NVA supply base near a hilltop overlooking the base. For the new guys here, we have originally been planning to do this these type of missions since the beginning of the building of this firebase in March," As he was speaking, he was smoking a cigar.

"Now, because we have been sporadically attacked so far, this had been delayed. One particular supply base, which has been the one that has done the majority of the attacking, is housing Charlie. We want to get these guys, and get them fast so we can resume our original mission."

"Us and Delta Company are gonna be doing the job. Bravo and Charlie Company will be on stand-by, providing fire support with the howitzers. We gonna land on the mountain and survey the area. Continue on and capture the base, the best you can. Try to avoid as least casualties as possible." Asshole. It was as if this fucker knew we were going into dangerous shit.

"Platoon Leaders, make sure your squads pack up on extra ammo and meds. We might be in some serious deep shit, so prepare for anything. You gentlemen may now go back to your hooches and prepare. Good luck, I'm counting on you gentlemen."

Then when we got to our hooch, Sergeant Clarke was not looking to good, he had a very worried expression on his face.

"You okay Sarge?" I asked

"No man. See Barrile? That man pushing for Major real hard. He volunteered us for this shit because us and Delta are always kept up to par."

"Are you serious?" Wallace's eyes widened.

"Why do you think you guys are here? This is mostly a brand new platoon. Me and Bell were originally in 3rd Platoon and the original 4th Platoon was wiped in an ambush last month. 20 killed, 15 wounded out of 40 men. Sergeant Grear was in that ambush. He could never get over it that his whole squad was also wiped out."

"So that's why he is--"

"Yep, exactly why he's doing dope. The dude is depressed, man."

"They do anything to try to help him?" Thomas asked. He was cleaning his M16 and was packing his med supplies.

"Nah. He's been requesting to go on R&R to get it off his mind for weeks now but Barrile keeps denying him because he is one of the veteran NCOs in the company. Lieutenant McDonald told Grear he was sorry and I could tell he was being sincere too. McDonald is getting a thing about Captain Barrile." R&R was what the Army called "Rest and Recuperation". They allow you 3-15 days to rest, party around, and most of all enjoy yourself. Usually you went to Eagle Beach where they had a lot of nurses in bikinis and stuff.

Bell chimed in, "Yeah man. What you new guys have to understand, is that Barrile does not care if men get wounded or killed. He's a gloryhound, man. We have to all stick together and watch out for each other's asses, okay? Then we'll make it out of this shit and hopefully get back to The World."

McDonald came in and told us to pack up. We were moving out.

We were told to pack on extra ammo. Instead of one soldier carrying 200 rounds of M16 ammo (5.56x45mm), he carried 400 rounds. Instead of carrying 4 grenades, you carried 8.

We didn't need to take the flak jackets this time, thankfully. We just took our rucks and that was that. The flak jackets were just too hot, and too heavy.

A few minutes before we got on the choppers, I read a letter from my little bro Jerry. Jerry was 14 and loved basketball just like me. I had been sort of a father figure to him since Dad left.:

Dear Steven,

''Guess what? I made it to the basketball team man! We had try-outs and the coach put me on the team and I am part of the bench team. I may not be starting but I at least made it to the team.''

''There is a lot of stuff going around here. Everyday they protest you guys and I am just sick of it. Calling you guys "murderers" and "puppets" for the government. Why would they do that? It's not like they're fighting the war; they don't have the right to do that in my opinion. And I don't believe anything that they say about you dud''es.

''There have also been a few race riots about a black kid who was shot by a white police officer but for the most part, everything is okay. Mom is alright; she misses you very very much, just like me. ''

''Well bye Steven. Stay strong and I hope you guys make it out of there alive. ''

Love,

your little bro Jerry.

I smiled. I was real proud of him for making the team. I almost cried thinking about home and family. I wrote back and told him I loved very much and was very proud of him. I said he would eventually be starting later in his high school life and he would do just fine.

Chapter Five - Back in the shit.(Part II)
1600 Hours (4:00 PM)

April 20, 1970

Hill 927, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

We left the base at 1530 Hours. The chopper was playing a song by The Animals. It was good and played through out the whole ride. It got us calm and everyone had their 'game faces' on. The blades of the Huey rippled through the air, sending echoes in the distance. There were 12-15 choppers for both companies.

The door gunners, SPC 5. Peterson and, PFC. Colborn, raked the hill with machine gun fire before we landed. We rappeled down the helicopter and we were on the hill.

"Okay! Settle down!" Lieutenant McDonald said. Captain Barrile had made Lieutenant McDonald leader of the mission.

Then we got up and started walking down the hill. I was chewing gum and had the two bandoliers of '60 ammo for Greene, criss-crossed on my torso. Me and Greene were actually becoming real good friends. Delta Company was patrolling down the other side of the hill.

The grass was thick and there was a lot of shrubs around. Rivera, who was our RTO (Radio Telephone Operator) got on the phone and called Delta Company.

"Delta-Tango, this is Hitman 0-2; Hitman 0-2. Coast is clear, over."

Captain Barrile got on the line suddenly, not sure.

"Pass it over to the commanding officer of your platoon, soldier."

McDonald asked why Captain Barrile wanted to speak to him.

"I don't know." Rivera said.

McDonald took the phone and answered,

"Yes Captain?"

"Look, I want you and your men to set up fortifications with sandbags around the grain paddies on this hill. It will provide cover for incoming attacks."

"What cover? I cannot see any cover from my viewpoint, sir. Permission requested to continue on?"

"NO! I told you god-dammit, set up the fuckin' sandbags and set up an ambush!" Captain Barrile screamed on the phone.

"You're gonna get some people killed out here!" Lieutenant McDonald was worried.

"Are you not following orders, soldier? Get the fuckin' company, set up the sandbags, or I will Article 15 your ass!"

Lieutenant McDonald was very pissed. He looked like he wanted to get artillery on Captain Barrile. "Affirmative, sir."

He muttered after, "Fuckin' asshole."

"See, McDonald is getting a thing about him man. Hey did you see how tense he was? Something is up." Sergeant Clarke said a few moments after.

"What Barrile gotta know is that I ain't dying." Greene said. He said it with a real serious look on his face.

Then Lieutenant McDonald gave us the orders, "Alright people set up the sandbags people."

"But sir, there is barely no cover. How---" the young private who asked got cut off by McDonald.

"Well I received orders man. Just look out for these slant-eyes."

We spent 10 minutes filling the sandbags with dirt and grass. Then,

''WHACK! WHACK!''

Ambush! The whole fucking hill lit up. The sandbags shredded, just like that. No fucking cover!

"Hey Perrier! Give me the ammo man!" I ran over to him and took off the two bandoliers. We were taking fire from the top of the hill. Oh shit, we had just been there! Were the NVA following us and luring us into an ambush?

We were throwing grenades over the top of the hill. There were bunkers too, that had NVA Machine Guns. Thomas was shooting an M79 Grenade Launcher, round after round.

"Move it people, MOVE IT! Let's get the fuck out of here!" Lieutenant McDonald screamed. Rivera was on the radio telephone, calling in for artillery,

"Delta-Tango, Delta-Tango! Fire support requested, over!"

"Our guys are getting cut up here, hurry the fuck up man!"

Then he got a response by a Sergeant who was the leader of an artillery squad,

"Affirmative Hitman 0-2."

I heard the Sergeant order his men to fire on the phone, in the background. The shells rained on the bunkers and our whole company watched in fascination.

I looked nearby and then I saw rounds landing near Delta Company.

"What the fuck? Why they shooting near Delta?!" Wallace said

Then the rounds got closer.... we hit Delta. The men just flew up in the air literally like rag dolls. Rivera was screaming on the phone and Lieutenant McDonald was pounding his fists on the ground, screaming in anger.

"NO NO NO! CEASE FIRE, CEASE FIRE!" Rivera said.

"Don't fucking move people, they're firing on their own men!" Sergeant Clarke said.

It was over, just like that. We had hit our own people. Dead in vain because of someone's careless mistake. Perhaps scared, fearing for his life. We were scared too.

We immediately ran to the other side of the hill where Delta was. The choppers were already in the air. The smell of burning flesh and gunpowder instantly filled my nose.

The choppers landed where Delta was. The awful screams of wounded men was just horrible. The medics on the chopper tried their best to work on the guys they thought who could survive. Guys who were critically wounded were just laid down and received some medical attention, before the medics went back to the guys they knew they could save.

We assisted too. The guys who the medics said were probably gonna be dead; our medics worked on them, no matter the circumstances, including Thomas.

The area was just scattered with dead men. Guys in our company were laying them down and zipping them up. There had to be at least 50 body bags; Dead NVA, Dead Americans.

There was a Specialist Two who had shrapnel wounds on his arms, silently crying against a tree. Another soldier who had his arms amputated, was trying to hold on to a medic but realized he had no more limbs to support him. These were our people.

We worked the best we could and then loaded up. Rivera was crying.

"I fucking killed them, man. I'm the dude who called in the fucking artillery!" He said. Sergeant Clarke grabbed him and comforted him,

"Calm down man. It's okay."

The radio on the chopper was still playing music and Greene got fed up. He grabbed it and threw it out the door.

"Fuckin' bullshit, man. If I hear music one more time, I am gonna blow this mother down!" Greene said.

The chopper pilot didn't even mind. He glanced once, and continued flying. We landed at the firebase and then walked to our hooches. Captain Barrile asked McDonald what had happened and we stopped to watch,

"What happen to you men?" McDonald didn't answer.

Barrile grappled McDonald by the collar,

"Don't you hear me fucking talking to you!" Barrile screamed at him and then McDonald whacked him in the face with his M16.

"Yeah, I heard you." Barrile was knocked out cold on the ground, and then McDonald spat at him.

"Let's go gentlemen." We continued on and went to our hooch. Lt Colonel Lucas came over later and said Captain Barrile was gonna be relieved of his duty as commanding officer,

"Because of the failed mission on the North Vietnamese supply base and from the feedback in the men in the platoon, I've sent orders to division headquarters back at Fort Campbell. I cannot have one of my commanding officers leading men into dangerous combat situations. Hopefully you men are okay with it." He smiled and left the hooch. Big deal.

Chapter Six - Angel Warriors
1840 Hours (6:40 PM)

May 2, 1970

Fire Support Base Ripcord, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

The battalion was now 415 men. We had started with 502 when we first arrived but thanks to the friendly fire incident and other combat operations our battalion is understrength. No one talked about Delta Company and guys from 2nd Squad were extremely pissed off at Rivera.

"You freakin' murderer, man! See you lit Delta up! You killed them, man!" one guy had said. We called him Donnie.

"Don't call me a murderer. It was just a mistake....." Rivera shaked his head.

"Bullshit! I mean fucking bullshit!"

Rivera jumped up and held Donnie by the collar, tensely. Rivera's eyes were glistening with tears and we were watching.

"Look I am sorry. I mean I am sorry man! Really freaking sorry. I feel mercy for Delta Company and for the dudes who lost their lives that day because of my fucking careless mistake. I also feel for their families man. What else do you want from me man?! I'm sorry, I'm just so sorry." He was now in tears.

Donnie nodded and It signifyied that he understood Rivera.

"Understand....." Rivera said, very soft and gently.

Rivera let go of Donnie and Donnie left the hooch. Rivera sat down on his bunk and put his head down, weeping. Thomas got up and sat next to him. He put his arms around Rivera and then Rivera put his around Thomas' shoulder.

"It's alright man, It's alright. You gonna be okay, you're gonna be alright."

Rivera was feeling guilt, simple as that. One careless mistake, because he was scaredhell, we all were. It was probably something he could never forget about, no matter what. Ordering the killing of your own, your own kind, just because you were scared and was clueless. It was just something you couldn't get out of your mind, and I just felt bad for him and the guys at Delta. God have mercy on Private First Class Brandon Rivera and Delta Company of 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment of the Screamin' Eagles. God please have mercy.

Well, we got a new CO. We called him Captain Eddie Cunningham. His head seemed to be shaped like a cinder block, he never seemed to blink when he spoke, and always; and I mean ALWAYS, seemed to use The John before every meal at the mess hall. It was like he had OCD and he wanted to empty his guts out good enough for it to be hungry for the lousy chow we got.

Speaking of lousy chow, we kept having beef soup with grill cheese sandwiches for lunch and dinner. It got so bad, where we started calling the sandwiches Yellow Bitches.

"Well gentlemen, more soup and Yellow Bitches my amigos," Wallace said.

"I bet the POW Camps serve better food than this." Greene replied.

"Man, they don't even serve the POWs food." Corporal Bell came over with the same shit. He had powdered milk in one hand, and a glass of water in the other.

"Whatever. Still bullshit that we get this."

"Well that's the Army in a nutshell, soldier." Sergeant Clarke shrugged.

"Hey you guys think the officers get the good stuff?" I asked. Then Sergeant Clarke and Bell glanced at each other, looked at me with a sheepish grin, and then laughed. They got up and walked away, looking at me like I was an idiot.

"What?"

"I don't know." Thomas joined in.

"Guess It means we don't know enough?" Greene said.

"Man, you new guys...." Wallace shaked his head, with a grin.

"Where your ass been?" Rivera was eating the Yellow Bitches.

"Cambridge, Massachusetts, man. I had moved from Cheyenne to Mass', because I didn't have anything going back in Wyoming. I was hanging around Harvard with a few brothers and I went to the Gym a lot."

"Explains how big you are." Greene replied. Wallace smirked.

"Anyways, I was getting into some trouble with the law and I figure I was going down a bad path, see? So I enlisted in the Army in '67 and got sent here around Tet where I was at Tan Son Nhut. We took a lot of shit up there. Came home in 69 and I didn't get no fuckin' welcome home...." He shaked his head and the smirk was gone.

"Then I got my orders to be sent here and so here I am."

All of a sudden, the whole mess hall shook. Everyone started doving for cover.

Mortar.

Just screaming, panicking and confusion. Everyone was racing out of the mess hall, grabbing their weapons.

"Okay, just get to fucking cover!" Lieutenant McDonald was screaming out orders with a piece of meatloaf in his mouth. Despite this extremely dangerous situation, I couldn't resist laughing my ass off. Greene was laughing too. Me and him ran into a bunker and we were just laughing like children. I buried my head on his shoulder and he was giggling.

"Man, let's just not get killed." He said, while giggling.

"Right on." I said.

Then he took out the bipod on the '60 and then It was back to combat. He started firing and I was firing my M16. I had given all the bandoliers of ammo to him, so he never asked me to feed him.

I was popping rounds, one at a time, picking out where I thought the enemy was. I was looking over the muzzle blasts. Nothing.

"Hey Steve, do you see where these Congs are, man?!" Greene asked me.

"That's a negative, man! Just stay on your shit!" I replied.

The mortar attack was over and two guys got hit. They had minor injuries and then we called in the Hueys. The attack had shaken Thomas up a bit.

"Too much fucking bullshit I have to worry about man! Just too much!"

"Poncho over your head when you smoke in the night, malaria pills a week, no half-canteens, never walk on trails, keep your feet good, maintain hygiene, secure your frags, always clean your rifle, have no sexual relations with the Vietnamese, and now this shit? Now I have worry about knowing that I can be attacked anywhere, anytime?"

Lieutenant McDonald came over.

"Man, stop worrying about that shit. Think about that '69 Mustang you want."

Thomas began to smile. He had always talked about getting a Ford Mustang when he got back home and cruise around town, catching the babes.

"Nah, now I want a Dodge Charger man. Hook up a super charger on the hood, and put on some new black rims. Maybe even paint the thing blue and upgrade the engine, I don't know."

"Well, my father always drove a Pontiac." McDonald replied. Everyone was looking at him to see what he was gonna say but he didn't say anything else. He went to go talk to Clarke and then he came over.

"Turn on the TV." He said.

We was watching the evening news as usual, and the reporters were stating how Nixon ordered U.S. troops to cross into Cambodia and how national riots were going on around the country, against his decision.

"That man can't live without combat. He is saying he is gonna withdraw troops but then he crosses into Cambodia." Greene said.

"Yeah, and they have those Greenies going in too." Sergeant Clarke added on.

Then we watched 2001: A Space Odyssey which was a very good film. We watched it for the rest of the day and we got a popcorn machine that we had ordered from Saigon a week before. Rivera was on it and he was making popcorn all day.

We got Budweiser and started drinking. We got drunk and then I collapsed into sleep eventually, according to Thomas.

Chapter Seven - Kent State
1400 Hours (2:00 PM)

May 9, 1970

Fire Support Base Ripcord, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

It was the only thing they talked about on the news. Kent State this, Kent State that. Same old stuff. It all happened four days ago at around 12:30 PM. They kept playing the same bullshit with guys burning their draft cards in Washington and saying "Hell no, we won't go! Hell no, we won't go!"

"Hey Sarge, what you think about what happened in Kent State?" I asked.

"Don't mean nothin' to me, man. Don't mean nothin' man, not a thing. Those protesters mean this to me:" Sergeant Clarke held up two middle fingers.

"But c'mon man they are doing what they think is right? Who knows?" Thomas said.

"Are you kidding me?" Clarke raised his voice.

Then Lieutenant McDonald came in our hooch and cut off the confrontation. He seemed real tired.

"People, slack off. We're airborne, we don't do this shit."

"Okay, so since this is one of the best squads in Fourth Platoon, Cunningham has sent orders down at division for all of you to be promoted, based on my testimony. I'm proud of you men, no matter what has happened over here or what's goin' on man back home." He smiled.

"Thank you, sir." Sergeant Clarke got up and gave McDonald a salute. McDonald gave back a salute and left the hooch.

So what the deal was, was that everyone who was not a Corporal was gonna be promoted to that rank. Bell and Wallace who were already Corporals got promoted to Sergeant and Clarke got promoted to Sergeant First Class. He was now senior advisor to Lieutenant McDonald.

"Well, what do you guys wanna do now?" Clarke asked.

"Yo let's play some football." Rivera said.

What we did was we got 1st Squad to play with us. We made a designated area where we would play with sandbags. The "field" was 20-40 feet long and 10-20 feet wide. They had some Vietnamese woman around the camp who would clean the hooches, who then became our cheerleaders for the game. They all kept cheering, "GI number one! VC number ten! Fucking A!"

It was Sergeant Clarke on Quarterback, Me as Running Back, Rivera and Greene as Wide Receivers, and 1st Lieutenant Bob Kalsu, who had played football for the Buffalo Bills, was gonna play guard. Everytime we asked or praised him about him, he would just shrug us off. But he was a nice guy. He never cussed and was always nice to everyine. Kalsu was from one of the artillery batteries, I believe Battery A. Bell was on Fullback.

Wallace was playing Tight End. For a guy that was 6'5, 255 lbs, It did definitely fit him.

We played and played four games. The whole company was around us, It felt like an actual football game that you saw on TV. Guys were drinking beer and shit. In the last game, Sergeant Grear called a penalty against Clarke apparently about me being offsides when I was only around half a foot from the team. Then they started arguing and then a fight almost started, which McDonald and Cunningham broke up. The game ended with us winning three games out of four.

Then we went back to our hooch and started playing checkers, using a set Greene had gotten. The TV we had was not working and all we got was a static screen. So the only thing we had to do was play cards and the checkers. Sometimes we would go to the wreck room and play ping-pong and pool, but only rarely we were allowed to go in their anyways.

I was the worst checkers play ever, and Sergeant Clarke, Greene, Thomas, Bell, even Wallace beat me. Rivera lost to me as his goal was just to capture as many pieces as possible so I finally beat him. He didn't seem to mind.

On our radio they were playing These Boots Are Made For Walkin' by Nancy Sinatra but instead, we sang this version:

"These Gooks Are Made For Walkin',

That's just what they'll do.

One of these days these gooks,

Are gonna, walk all, over -YOU."

Then we started listening to All Along the Watchtower by Jimi Hendrix for the rest of the time. Lieutenant McDonald came in and played a few games of checkers with us. He won all four.

The Vietnamese who cleaned around our hooches came in. They were dress in these slutty clothes and they had some beer. One said,

"Mmmmm.... You GIs want to fuckey-fuckey!"

"Fuckin' A!" Rivera said. But he reminded us that we did need to use condoms or we would get the Black VD. Apparently, It was the meanest thing you could get in 'Nam, besides the supposed: Jungle Rot. They say once you get the Black VD, you wouldn't be allowed to go back to the U.S. and you would die slowly in pain and suffering in 'Nam. I didn't believe it, but I still was gonna use the condoms anyway.

The only one who didn't do it was Clarke because he had his girl and didn't want to cheat on her no matter what. Bell didn't do it either. Clarke just told us to be careful and left the hooch.

We had beer passed around and were drinking, getting drunk. I danced with one girl and I was kissing her and grabbing her ass. Everyone started to chant my name to bang her and then we went to my bunk, pulled the sheets over and then she gave me oral. Everyone was saying "Ooooooo! Good job Stevie Boy!". I turned over and started giving her intercourse. She was moaning and moaning, "You GI.... mmmm.... you boom-boom soooo good."

Then we were done after like only twenty minutes of banging. She came out of my bunk smiling and licking the cum on her lips, while trying to put her bra back on. Lieutenant McDonald came in and was looking at us all, and we all stopped. Our jaws dropped and the Vietnamese look frightened.

"Hey TROOPS! What the fuck are you all doing?"

"Um sir---" Thomas got cut off.

"Shut your mouth, soldier. You people are banging and drinking...." He paused for a second and look liked he was gonna hit one of us.

"...But you fuckers forgot me!" He grinned and then we all started laughing. One of the Vietnamese started sucking on her finger and dancing like a prostitute, in front of him. He grabbed her and started kissing her, she complied.

I was tired again for some reason and then I drifted into sleep. Seemed like the war just made you exhausted like crazy.

Chapter Eight - Rain
1000 Hours - 1015 Hours (10:00 AM - 10:15 AM)

June 1, 1970

Fire Support Base Ripcord, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

We didn't do shit for the rest of May. Just like that. We had a few mortar attacks but nothing major. Only a few guys got killed in May in our whole battalion. The month was just depressing. We had the same shitty food, so that didn't help either.

On May 30, It rained. It's still raining. All the ammo dumps are getting soaked with mud. The guys in the artillery batteries were just getting tired and tired of attempting to clean them and then they just gave up.

We were sitting around eating C-Rats and cleaning our weapons. It was the canned food the Army gave you. They weren't even better than at the mess hall but that was a different story.

"You guys hear about dudes around Dak To cutting the ears off of dead dinks?" Greene asked.

"Sure have. They want Mr. Cong as a war trophy." Wallace said.

"Yeah, a war trophy they can tell their mama's about." Thomas said. He was checking his ammo on his M16 and M79.

"They even wearing the ears as necklaces. Fuckin' sick bastards." Greene was cleaning the barrel of his M60.

"I heard they even raped some 13 year old girl." Bell said.

"Yo that's what happens when you got some dudes who went dinky dau, man." Sergeant Clarke was saying. He was eating Turkey Loaf.

"They start actin' like the VC themselves. Why you think we got them protesters on our asses thinking all of us do this? It's because of those creeps." He seemed real pissed about it. He got up and walked out of the hooch.

Then Lieutenant McDonald gave us the word that we were gonna be packing some sandbags around some new bunkers around the base, with two squads from Charlie Company. The dirt was all muddy and murky from the rain and then our fatigues became dirty as hell. Wallace had gotten a flat-top and for some reason, looked much lighter than he usually looked. Instead of being dark-skinned, he was brown-skinned, maybe even light-skinned. Corporal Erin from Charlie Company asked what the hell had happened to him.

"I used this lotion I had gotten from one of the Vietnamese ladies we was with. I guessed it don't work too good." He turned away.

Clarked sighed, "See I fucking told you people to not mess around too much with these bitches, man. Wallace, you better hope that shit wears off or you're gonna be looking a multi-racial kike." A few guys from Charlie Company giggled.

"Did you just call me a fucking jew?" Wallace raised his eyebrow. "Just go fuck yourself." He smacked back at Clarke.

Clarke stood up and then Wallace walked over to him to see what Clarke was gonna do. We were watching.

"Yeah, what you gonna do white boy? Just 'cause you a Sergeant First Class, don't mean shit."

Clarke simply shaked his head and walked away. He didn't like Wallace saying that --- you could see it all over his face --- but he didn't want anything to do with Wallace.

We were using the shovels to scoop the murky water out of the mud. We were suppose to make the sandbags about 5-10 feet high around the bunkers. We put as much mud as possible in there. Then I heard a pop. Few seconds later,

WHACK!

Sniper.

The round grazed by my head and smacked into a sandbag, which exploded with mud into my face. The impact had my whole head ringing and I blacked out.

"Hey Steve! Wake up, man!" I felt a palm lightly slapping my face. I looked up and It was Rivera.

"Where am I?"

"You're in the 'Nam, my man!"

I checked my watch and It read 1015 Hours. It had only been 15 minutes. A mortar round landed near Rivera and he flinched for a quick sec.

"Yo give me a hand..."

He raised his hand and helped me up. My head was hurting and I felt tired. Really tired. I was in one of the bunkers with Rivera. Then we ran out and I saw Greene on the '60 firing rounds directed toward the hills. Guys from Charlie and Bravo Company were assisting the artillerymen in cleaning the mud off the shells, which meant quickly throwing water on the shell and shoving it in the howitzer.

We ran out of the bunker, which quickly then got engulfed in flames after an enemy mortar landed in it. Rivera barely made it out and got quickly wounded. He had some shrapnel wounds in his legs and he fractured his arm. The hellish wound was seeping with blood out of his arm, where you could see the bone.

"Man, just leave me here man. I was meant to die...." he said, weakly.

"NO! No way!" I grabbed him up and he put his arms around my shoulders and I carried him. I sat him down and then Thomas ran over with some meds.

Thomas ripped his fatigue shirt open because mud was beginning to get in the wounds. I was helping him put some bandages on Rivera, while Wallace and Bell ran over and provided some cover fire for us. Bell had gotten his piece hooked by some grass and Wallace disentangled it for him. Wallace grinned. Lieutenant McDonald was firing his CAR-15.

"Hey Rivera, you're going back to The World, man!" Thomas said.

Rivera was weak as hell and slowly said "I hope so.... I'm pushin' for it...."

The ambush ended and then we called in the chopper. Two guys from Charlie Company got killed. They extracted Rivera and the dead guys.

"You're gonna make it back to The World, man." Bell said.

"Yeah." Lieutenant McDonald added on.

The chopper began to lift off and Rivera gave us the thumbs up sign. We smiled and waved back.

"Bye bye, Vietnam!" He said.

Chapter Nine - The 'Nam Groove
1924 Hours (7:24 PM)

June 14, 1970

Fire Support Base Ripcord, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

Mail call. We got a letter from Rivera. He said he was doing okay and had been in 5 surgeries so far. They had to remove some muscle from the shrapnel wounds in his legs but not anything to major. He had gotten some screws in his arms to let his arm heal well and he would keep it. He joked about the biggest thing he had to worry about was getting fat off of C-Rats.

I got a letter from Greene's sister, Sharon. She said Greene had told her a lot about me and I seemed really nice. She even included how I wanted to be a seismologist, which I told Greene but to keep secret. Sharon also said to take care of Greene and that he thought too much about anti-war demonstrations and his girlfreind Charlotte.

Sharon stated that she hated Charlotte because "she was a gold digger" but Greene didn't see it and loved Charlotte so much. Then she said she trusted me, and that she loved Greene to dead and that "whoever is a friend of Oliver [Greene], is a friend of mine". It really touched me, really did. You just didn't expect white folks or black folks to get along so well but Greene and I did, even with his family.

I asked Greene when we were in our hooch drinking beer and playing chess. Wallace had gotten a board and pieces from a dude in Bravo Company, so we had chess and checkers. I pulled the letter from under my bunk and It read:

Sharon Greene

925 Monroe Avenue

Rochester, New York, 14624

"Hey Greene? Your sister is real nice, man." I said.

"I don't play that sister stuff Steve." He replied. He moved one of his pawns on the chess board. I captured it with my bishop. I was winning, FOR ONCE.

"No, man. Seriously."

"How do you know?" He asked.

"She sent me a letter. You told her about me?"

"Yeah I did." He said, "Let me see the letter."

"Nope. What about that girl, Charlotte?"

"Aww shit, Sharon told you about Charlotte?"

"Yep." I said.

"Now let me see the letter." He asked.

I still said no and then he sucked his teeth and we continued playing. I easily won but I think he let me win. He didn't have no strategy except to capture as many pieces as possible until he reached my king. I was glad I won. I didn't want anything hard to do.

I got another letter from Jerry. He said that he had gotten a job as a sandwich maker at a local deli around the block. Jerry was good at that type of stuff. He always said he wanted to become a chef and he wanted me to try out his "most amazing creation of sandwiches that would make you never eat school lunch again!". Jerry also said Dean Taylor, a dude I knew back in High School, had gotten killed around An Khe with the 1st Cav.

Dean Taylor? When the hell did he get in the Army? Dean was an anti-war protester and had no business with Vietnam. When I got drafted, the dude told me to burn my card but I always declined and he would sigh at me, looking at me as if I was some type of evil force. The day before I left where we went on a date with some chicks, he finally apologized and told me to stay alive and come home, no matter about what's going on over here.

The rest of the mail was Wallace got some Reader's Digest magazines and a bill from the telephone company. The magazines were alright.

We had gotten some new equipment from the armory. Two CAR-15s, the carbine versions of the M16A1, which Clarke and Bell took and replaced their M16s. The barrel on Clarke's '16 was bended.

The armory sergeant, the guy who was in charge, gave another soldier the M16.

"Hey, what the hell is this?" The soldier said. He had a big head, slim built and had black hair. His rank was PFC and his name was Gavin.

"Your new weapon." The armourer said.

"The barrel is bended. I can't use this shit."

The armourer nudged it forward, "It's your fucking weapon, okay?"

"NO! I ain't taking this shit!" Gavin was pissed.

Lieutenant McDonald came over and wanted to see what was all the commotion about.

"Lieutenant, this guy is trying to get me killed out here! How am I gonna live with a bended rifle?"

Lieutenant McDonald was tired, tired of all the fighting. He simply told the armourer to give the guy a brand new M16 and that was that.

Our squad also got another sixty and a barrel for it, which Wallace took and replaced his M16. Clarke was explaining how Wallace didn't need the extra sixty and they got into heavy argument, spurting back racial slurs and such. They got real close to each other and Wallace was pushing Clarke away from him. What ending up happening was that Wallace sent the sixty back to the armoury and got an M16. He was real reluctant to do it but he didn't want to lose his temper off of something he felt was BS.

"Hey, you guys think we're gonna have a race problem over here?" Thomas asked.

"Don't mean nothing to me, man. A man [Wallace] fighting by my side, is a man fighting by my side. I don't care about his color." Greene said.

"Agreed." Thomas said.

Clarke came in and saw what we were talking about.

"If you guys think I'm some type of fucking racist, that's fine?"

"Who the hell said you were racist? We were just asking if we were gonna have a race problem, that's all." I said.

Clarke looked at me and left the hooch. He began smoking a cigarette and he felt bad. Maybe he did, I don't know. But the squad didn't need all this racial crap to get us separated. Wallace and I were the only black dudes and we knew that, even Greene did because he got along with us so well.

This was Vietnam where we all needed to get out alive. Who the hell ever said anything about race or protesting? This was our war, our generation. We were going to do what was necessary to survive, It was just the way It was. It Is What It Is.

Chapter Ten - Terror
0800 Hours (8:00 AM)

June 21, 1970

Hill 923, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam 

We had been at Firebase O'Reilly since the 16th from some of the South Vietnamese troops (ARVN). The ARVN, they were bad. They just didn't have anything up to offer against the PAVN (NVA).

Firebase O'Reilly was close to Ripcord. It wasn't much different. Howitzers, moutains, hills, hooches, bunkers; all the same. O'Reilly was gonna be used as a support base to Ripcord and provide artillery and mortar for the guys down there.

At 0700 this morning, I sprung up from bed in terror. I had had a horrible dream. In the dream, we had been bombarded my artillery shells in a sporadic attack. Our company was accidentally hit by friendlly howitzers and we started taking casualties. I lost both of my arms, just like Williams.

I was crying and praying for someone to help me but no one was there. Then a 'Cong pops up and grins at me. I try to reach for my M16 but I have no limbs to support me and he snatches the '16. He throws his AK-47 at my face, fracturing my nose. As a form of disrespect, he fires two M16 rounds into my lungs. He finished me off with my own fucking weapon!

The dream ended, just like that. Greene was putting on his fatigues and came over to me.

"Hey you okay?" he asked.

"Yeah, kinda."

"Well, you were having some violent movements on your bunk, man. I swear I thought I saw you trying to reach for your M16, maybe you were gonna fire on us. I don't know, you weren't conscious. Just stay well, okay?" He smiled and patted me on the shoulder.

I went to the latrine and puked my guts out. I was sweating and nauscious. In 'Nam, the things you thought you could forget about, you just could not. It was different in the movies, very different. Killing was something you had to become. It just was.

I grabbed my fatigues and fitted on my boots. Then I went to the mess hall.

They were giving powdered eggs, toast and dehydrated potatoes with sour cream. I sat at the table where the squad was. Everyone was looking at me, when I came.

"What...?" I said.

"You okay? We saw you moving crazy all over the place when you were sleeping, man. Greene said you had a bad dream." Sergeant Clarke had a stack of toast that was quickly disappearing.

"I'm fine. It's nothing..." I didn't wanna talk about it.

"Anywho, Cunningham's got us on patrol. Our platoon is suppose to go on a hill 1500 Meters from the base with two platoons from Charlie Company. This ain't the hill from last time and estimates say at a battalion of these dinks. Charlie Company is gonna search for the NVA while we provide supporting fire  I just hope we make it out of here, man." Clarke shaked his head and then finished his last piece of toast. He continued on to the eggs and potatoes.

"He's already becoming Barrile." Bell said, "He keeps this shit up and we'll be dead in NO TIME!"

We finished up and went to our hooch. It was 0730 hours by this point. Lieutenant McDonald came in and told us we were gonna wear our flak jackets.

He said he didn't want casualties "if some idiot RTO fucks up and we get bombarded." The flak jackets were made to protect against shrapnel, snake bites, mosquitoes, and small bullet wounds. Again, they were just too hot and too heavy.

We were airlifted to the hill at 1740 hours. The fucking chopper was shaking and swerving around the whole damn ride. I thought we had gotten hit.

"Hey what the fuck is going on!!?" Clarke was screaming and he was about to fall out. He was on holding on for dear life on the mounted machine gun and the door gunner was trying to help him.

"It's just a lot of wind. Just a lil' rain, hold on fellas!" The pilot said.

Thomas was trying to hold on to the handles. Greene was holding on to my collar.

BOOM!

The round ripped through the tail rotor. The helicopter swerved all the way to the right and the door gunner hit the side of his head against the door and stumbled inside.

"We're hit, we're fucking hit!" Sergeant Clarke.

Thomas grabbed the phone and called Charlie Company.

"Hitman 0-3, this 0-2. We've been hit my enemy rocket fire! We're going down!"

"No we ain't!" The pilot said.

"We still got control of the main rotor," he was saying, "The tail rotor is shit but we can control it down!

"Then why the fuck is it still swerving??!" Wallace was holding on to the handle of one of the doors.

"Hold up, man!" The pilot's name tag was "ADAMS"

The thing kept swerving and finally stopped and got into an emergency landing position. I prayed and held on for dear life.

God don't make me die in this shit....

The smoke was starting to engulf the helicopter and then we started coughing. Bell vomited out the doors.

The chopper started to violently descend on a patch of grain paddies and then we finally touched the ground. It skid about ten meters on the dirt and shaked like crazy.

We all bailed out and scraped against the paddies. The pilot finally got the thing to stop.

"Aw, fuck." Greene was moaning on the soil. The vines had slashed his arms and he was bleeding. His flak jacket was shredded.

I grabbed him up by both arms and I dragged him along. He collapsed under me.

"Yo, you alright man?!" I said.

"Yeah..."

He got up on his own this time. He was okay.

We looked and found everyone else. They were okay and had sustained very minor injuries.

"Let's go take this fucking hill...." Sergeant Clarke said. He was tired.

The other choppers landed safely after and the other door gunners shot the hell out of the hill.

McDonald ran over to us and asked us if we were alright.

"Yeah, we're good." Wallace said. Men from Charlie Company helped the pilot and door gunners out of the helicopter gave them aid.

We started up the hill. Greene laid down a nice line of machine gun fire against two bunkers. I saw an NVA soldier fifteen meters in front of me. I lifted the M16 and pulled the trigger. His body flipped back and he lay on the floor bleeding from his hips. I killed him! It was REAL! Shit was personal.

Then that's when the RPG came up. The Cong had raised his arms up high and then he pulled the trigger, discharging the round.

O God, Please don't make me die.

The round hit the dirt and sent a bunch of soil and shrapnel flying into us. My fatigues were dirty as hell. I saw a body next to me and there was a massive chest wound, the size of a plate. The heart was still beating and blood was gushing out of the wound.

I turned away. I didn't wanna see it, I just didn't. Thomas grabbed the guy and dragged him to safety.

Then we started calling in for artillery and Bell was on the phone.

"Yeah Delta-Tango, artillery up top the hill. Requested immediately, over!"

"Roger that, Hitman 0-2!"

The artillery lit up the top of the hill and I saw bodies of NVA flying in the air. I remembered how Delta Company had gotten it and I started scrambling down the hill, with the rest of the squad following.

It was over. We started walking up the hill and the whole damn place was littered with dead Vietnamese.

"There is fucking slant-eyes all over the place." McDonald said, "Whole fuckin' battalion. Look for wounded NVA."

We started looking around and Greene and I found a teenaged Vietnamese boy and another teenage girl, crying over a woman. The woman had a bullet wound in her stomach. The boy, who looked to be about fifteen, was crying like crazy, as well as the girl. The boy was holding the Vietnamese woman with his arms.

"Holy shit. Hey Bell, check this out man." Greene motioned him to come over.

"It's a fucking gook. These assholes were probably working with the NVA." Bell raised his CAR-15 and shoved in a new clip. He was preparing to kill.

"Hey hey, don't fucking shoot them, man!" Sergeant Clarke ran over and slapped the weapon out of Bell's hand. He got Thomas to treat the kids wounds and then he brought them over to Lieutenant McDonald. McDonald then brought the kids to some guys in Charlie Company.

"We'll take them to HQ." Lieutenant Bienstock from 1st Platoon said, "Interrogate them if they know anything about the North Vietnamese."

Then two sergeants took the kids and brought them over. They were kidding around with the girl, asking her that we needed some cheerleaders and asking the kid if he scored on some Vietnamese. Then the boy whispered in the girl's ear and she came over. She exploded.

The impact rip the limbs of the sergeants, with one getting decapitated. It literally shook everyone, with guys falling down no where near the blast, as if the shock wave mentally destroyed you. The boy started to run as fast as he could, before Greene grabbed the sixty and opened up on him.

The rounds kicked up the dirt and then smacked into rib cage with a couple of rounds smacking into his neck, slightly decapitating the boy. He lay there and the dirt quickly began filling up with blood.

We didn't say anything. Thomas and Lieutenant Bienstock picked up the limbs of the soldiers, one by one. Nothing said. Sergeant Clarke cried silently and Lieutenant McDonald called for the choppers.

The choppers came and took the bodies. There were still some civilians down on a nearby village next to the hill but the door gunners shot everything in their paths. The little South Vietnamese ran, before getting cut up by a neat line of ammunition. The door gunners fired so many rounds, the M60s started to overheat.

It began to rain.

Chapter Eleven - In The Wire
0700 Hours - 2000 Hours (7:00 AM - 8:00 PM)

July 1, 1970

Firebase O'Reilly, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

We didn't talk about it. We didn't. The girl, her flesh splattered all over the place. No parts nothing. Just red and pink.

Then the sergeants.. God, the fucking sergeants! Their names were Staff Sergeant Brendon Graves, 29, and Sergeant David Harris, 25. I remember how LT. Bienstock looked when put on the white gloves and pick up each limb one by one, along side Thomas.

Their eyes were both glistening with tears. Clarke had his hand over his face and didn't say nothing.

Then we found one of the heads of the soldiers. Nothing, no face. Eyeballs dangled down the cheeks where vicious flesh and blood was streaming down, rhythimically. The mouth was sliced off by large protruding pieces of shrapnel. The flesh was spiking out all over the forehead and the nose was sliced in half. The ears were charred.

Thomas picked up the head. I still remember the zip of the body bags. Something I will probably never forget.

Sometimes during the week, I would just cry for them without even noticing it and Wallace would catch me and comfort me.

Greene skipped lunch for the rest of the month. He ate breakfast, went to the hooch, lay on his bunk, and just read magazines.

Then one time when he finally went to lunch, we asked him what was going on.

"Hey Greene, you care about the people over here?" Wallace asked.

"NO." Greene said, with a quick reply.

"Yeah because all these slant-eyes are VC and NVA." Bell added on and tried to smile.

"Sure..." Greene said, softly.

"Look it's okay to feel bad about these people over here, man. It really is. You don't have to hold no grudge on 'em." Thomas said. He patted Greene's shoulder.

Then Greene raised his eyebrow. "Me holding a grudge? Me feeling bad?" He sighed and shaked his head, "Never happen." And walked out the mess hall, just like that.

We were starting to forget. Finally.

So this morning at 0700, Ripcord has been attacked. ATTACKED! We were sleeping at O'Reilly when exactly at 0703, the loud sounds of mortars and artillery came outta nowhere. Captain Cunningham kept receiving radio from Delta Company that the base was getting teared up by rockets and mortars.

"Hitman 0-2, this is 0-4! We're getting heavily bombarded by enemy fire! Fire mission, OVER!" It was Captain Baker who was sending the radio transmissions.

The two artillery batteries, Battery A and Battery B, were getting their asses cut up by mortars and rockets, and they were paying too much attention trying to keep their asses alive instead of giving fire support to the base.

They sent us a radio transmission too.

"Hitman 0-2, Delta-Tango is in deep shit, requesting a fire mission!"

We all listened to the rockets and mortars.

"Those poor bastards are taking it bad..." Cunningham said, "Charlie's got them in their ass." By Charlie, he meant the North Vietnamese.

Bravo was operating around the jungle southwest of Ripcord and Charlie Company was at Hill 902, trying to secure 805. We were waiting for the go but all we could do is just watch.

We got lunch at 1200 Hours. Fuckin' chipped beef on toast. All we talked about was what was going on at Ripcord. Shit was real.

"I heard they're surrounded by five thousand NVA gooks...." Greene said.

"Man, they need to get me on that Freedom Bird [Plane that took men back to the United States from Vietnam] My time is too short for this." Lieutenant McDonald came over.

"Hey LT, why you join the U.S. Army?" Sergeant Clarke was trying a strategy to stop the flies from eating the food.

"My father. All he wanted me to do. He served as a company commander back in WWII and was there during D-Day. The guy is really decorated, with two bronze stars and four purple hearts."

"So he wanted me to do something in my life because you know; I didn't do anything in college except party and slack off with my buds, from like 1965 - 1967. He wanted me to go to Officers School' and be just like him, maybe even better."

"Then I joined the Army in '68 and took Officers School."

"Why are you here?" Wallace asked.

"They sent me to 'Nam and I was at Camp Evans in early 1970. Brought me to Ripcord and here I am."

"Hey Lieutenant, how old are you?" Clarke asked.

"24. Today's my birthday. I told you guys but whatever I guess." He smiled.

"No shit?" Wallace said.

"Yeah."

"Now I remember...." Bell said.

There wasn't much we could do. We all apologize for forgetting but McDonald told us to not worry about it. We got the other squads around and then they all gave him a happy birthday. So I went to the front of mess hall counter and asked one of the cooks if he had anything related to birthdays.

"Who's birthday is it?" He asked.

"Our Platoon Leader." I replied.

"Oh okay, cool man. I got some pound cake and ice cream? You want that?"

I replied with yes and then he brought over a big, half eaten banana pound cake with three quarts of strawberry ice cream to the side. He also gave me a small blue candle, as well. The rest of the squad came over and helped me carry it over to the tables. We thanked the cook and he smiled with a salute.

We brought it over to the table and then I shoved the candle into the cake. Then everyone in the mess hall went silent, the whole Alpha Company. Then came from all of us:

"Happy Birthday to you! Happy Birthday to YOU! Happy Birthday Lieutenant McDonald, Happy Birthday toYOU!"

Then we all clapped and were cheering. Captain Cunningham came over and gave a happy handshake to McDonald. Lieutenant McDonald started to cry. The tears were streaming down and then everyone was patting his back and his shoulders.

"It's okay Lieutenant, It's okay. It's your birthday, man!" Sergeant Grear said.

"Thanks guys. I really appreciated it. You know I ain't never cried until now...." He laughed and then we did. "Haha, I'm just really touched, man."

He continued on. "Thank all of you. This is for the guys who died out here and are fighting their asses back at Ripcord."

"Now can I get a hooah!?" He smiled.

We all replied,

"HOOAH!"

We ate real good. There wasn't enough at all and we ended up finishing the whole supply of ice cream and cake the cooks had. Fortunately, they weren't pissed and warned us that we would have to wait a week until the new supply of desserts were delivered in. Okay, we could deal with that.

We finished up and hanged around the base. We sort of wanted to give McDonald a "birthday present." So, Sergeant Clarke and Grear got him a hooker, this time none for us. We were all tempting him to have sex with her and then he did. It was hilarious and all we heard was moaning and screaming. I never laughed so hard.

"GI GI! WHY YOU BOOM-BOOM SO HARD?! I JUST A LITTLE VIETNAMESE GIRL!" That had us cracking up. He came out of our hooch. We went back in and started drinking beer and playing chess.

Then starting at around 1930 hours, we kept receiving terrifying radio calls of scared men at Ripcord, getting constantly attacked by regiments of PAVN (NVA) or "People's Army of VietNam" One particular radio call was with this sergeant from Delta Company, scared out of his life. He said,

"''The fucking dinks, there right there! We're in our bunkers sitting down with our weapons but if we come out, we immediately start getting shot at. No where to go! All we hear is them saying "GI Die Tonight! GI Die Tonight!" I don't if I am gonna make it outta here, I'm scared; I'm nervous. Oh god..... Please......  Oh shit they're coming! They're COMING! LOOK OUUUUUT!!---''"

And then It gets cut off. It frightened Thomas.

"Bad dream....." Sergeant Clarke sheepishly grinned.

"Go fuck yourself, man!" Thomas shot back.

Clarke didn't like him saying that but I guess Karma's a bitch.

Then at 1945 hours, we saw an F-4 flying all over the night sky and you could actually see it drop the canisters of napalm. The bombs streaked across Hill 805 and went in a billowing cloud. It fascinated all of us, ironically. Our artillery men got on the howitzers and then a secondary bombardment started. The artillery hitting the hills sounded like "Peeeew, BOOM!"

"I hope Charlie Company is okay..." Thomas said.

Both of these bombardments continued on for another fifteen minutes, pounding Hill 805 and 902, as well as Ripcord. If those NVA took a direct hit, they wouldn't stand a chance.

It reached 2000 hours. Chow. Depressing. Finished the day.

Chapter Twelve - "Move, SHITHEAD!"
1254 Hours (12:54 PM)

July 7, 1970

Firebase O'Reilly, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

We were still waiting for the word to go. Captain Cunningham had given us the word that a recon team from Bravo Company had spotted NVA chatter and mortar tubes at around another hill, codenamed "Hill 1000" for being one thousand meters high.

Bravo Company landed at an LZ on Hill 1000 after capturing Hill 805 in a bloody battle. Bravo went back to Ripcord to replace Delta, who would in-turn go to Hill 1000.

Cunningham said sooner or later we would get the go to go to Hill 1000, to support Delta Company.

On July 2nd, Charlie Company got attack by a company-sized NVA sapper attack. Sappers, as they called it, were the North Vietnamese suicide bombers. We also heard that the NVA had carried satchel charges, which were essentially hand carried bombs like dynamite that were thrown at troops and detonated with a remote control.

Cunningham also said that this caused all types of confusion, with troops from Charlie Company not even knowing what was happening as the sappers came silently at first and detonated the bombs, surprisingly. It was impossible to even tell whether It was a mortar attack or the NVA had breached the perimeter.

We got a radio message with a Lieutenant from Charlie Company, screaming at Corporal Erin to move out.

"Move, SHITHEAD!"

"Get your head out of your ass you faggot baboon!"

Our squad was cracking up.

We also got our little portable TV from Grear to work again. Apparently one of the nobs inside had mud on it, causing the TV to short-circuit, which in-turn caused the static image. We took it out and cleaned it, then plugged in the TV and it worked.

They talked about an airline crash in Canada, specifically Air Canada Flight 621. Unfortunately, all 109 passengers and crew members passed away.

They also talked about some anti-war demonstrations and showed veterans throwing their medals in Washington.

Sergeant Clarke had a strong hatred for the anti-war movement, specifically the civilian protesters and we could all tell. I mean he didn't like the war but he didn't like being protested either.

Mail call. Thomas got a letter from his parents that stated that his brother Blake Thomas was KIA with the 23rd Infantry Division at Tam Ky around the Quang Nam Province. There was a lot of pain and frustration in the letter, stating that a platoon leader had mailed Thomas' parents information regarding to his death.

Blake was in a company, the letter stated, to look for a hamlet suspected of housing Viet Cong during the night. But during the foot patrol, the company was ambushed and repeatedly attacked by the fighters, at random.

In all the panic and confusion, the platoon leader lit up a flare which exposed the company and were then nearly over-runned by a whole battalion of VC. The worse part was VC were coming from both sides, which caused even more confusion.

Artillery was called in and a sqaud was trapped in the cross-fire, which included Blake. Taking fire from both sides, already half of the squad was lost.

Near the end of the battle, Blake was directing the remaining squad members to retreat when he got hit by a friendly artillery shell and was killed instantly. His parents said in the letter that the Lieutenant was sorry to have to write in those circumstances.

Man, I can't you how much Thomas was crying. I'd never seen a man cry like that before. The irony? We didn't say anything. No crying for us. It was as if the whole story had us in disbelieve and in total shock, so crying was just not enough.

Clarke eyes were gazing and staring into nothing. One-thousand yard stare.

"I'm sorry." Bell said.

Those were the only words we said to Thomas. This just wasn't the time for sympathy, It just wasn't. We stood there and did nothing. We played a few chess games but predominantly just silent.

This was our life.

Chapter Thirteen - Going back to The World.
1400 Hours (2:00 PM)

July 8, 1970

Firebase O'Reilly, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

Thomas went on leave to bring home the casket of his brother Blake and to attend the funeral. His time in Vietnam was over. When he left, he was crying and I hugged him tight.

"You're going back to The World, man. Vietnam is over for you." I said.

"I'm gonna miss you guys." He said, "You guys make me feel like I'm at home." We laughed, a quiet little laugh.

"Thomas, do something back in The World, man. Get the Dodge Charger, drive with the babes." Sergeant Clarke grabbed his hand and shaked it. Thomas nodded.

The Huey came in and then Thomas boarded. He waved at us and it lifted off.

I prayed in my head that he would be okay. I prayed. I wasn't exactly sure. The protesters would be treating him with hostility and deep down, we all knew that. Thomas was a quiet guy, he didn't talk much. But he was just like every one of us.

So Thomas' replacement was a dude called Private First Class. PJ (Peter-Jonathan) Nance from Riverside, California. He looked like a young version of the actor Marlon Brando and smelled like perfume and C-Rats. Sergeant Clarke introduced us to him.

"Alright, this is Nance from 2nd Platoon. He's suppose to be the replacement for Thomas and he's a good soldier." Clarke saluted him and Nance saluted back.

"What are ya about, FNG?" Bell said.

"Nothing much, man. You know how I got in the Army?" Nance said, "A bet."

"Are you serious???" Greene's eyes widened.

"Yep. Well not exactly a bet..."

"What the fuck was in your head to exactly do that??!!" I didn't believe it. No fucking way!

"It was not me, It was my parents. So damn strict about school and If you failed in education, you were like irrelevant to them. The deal was about whether I would pass my Finals Exams and go to college, or fail the exams, and get sent to military school. You got to love fucking outstanding parents!" Nance didn't seem to happy about it.

"Sheeeit." Wallace laughed, "Gotta love them parents, man."

Then Lieutenant McDonald came in and called us for lunch at the mess hall. Nance introduced himself to McDonald and they shaked hands. I think they were gonna get along just fine.

We had roast beef, mash potatoes, carrots, green peas, pound cake, and milk. Usually it was pretty good and better than some of the other dishes, so we were content. The roast beef was also the highlight of the meal.

Lieutenant McDonald got us a film projector and we were looking for some movies to watch.

"I found some movie called Guess Who's Coming To Dinner."

"This movie is okay. Just about some black guy and white lady coming to dinner. You got anything better?" Sergeant Clarke asked Lieutenant McDonald.

"No." McDonald said.

"Maybe the black guy ate all the fried chicken." Bell grinned.

"Well maybe your mama ate the damn fuckin' mash potatoes and shit her damn panties. You dig it?" Wallace said. Bell looked up at him with a pissed off expression but then grinned.

"Yeah maybe she did." Bell said and that ended the conversation.

At the end, we watched Planet of the Apes, some sci-fi film about astronauts meeting apes on a unknown planet. It was alright and we had a good time.

I got a letter from Jerry stating he had broken his ankle while playing ball. He had said he had already gotten surgery to fix it but also stated that mom was gonna have a hard time paying the medical bills.

I answered him right away. I put $100 in a letter back to him and said mom and him would be just fine.

Charlie Company was back on the hill with Delta Company for a second assault. During the first assault, Delta had reported finding seven dead NVA and with themselves sustaining two killed and seven wounded. Lieutenant Colonel Lucas had actually flown in to the hill to provide distractions for Delta and dropped ordinance for them.

The chopper took hits but LTC Lucas and the pilot were unscathed, fortunately.

Bravo Company were still getting pounded back at Ripcord. We received numerous radio calls from COs asking for fire support and our artillerymen were working their asses. Round after round, the howitzers fired until they began to overheat.

Eventually, our company would be going to the jungle around Ripcord. Eventually, we would be hunting for North Vietnamese and to kill, to kill as much as we possibly. Eventually.

We were still waiting for the word.

Chapter Fourteen - The Jungle
1030 Hours (10:30 AM)

July 10, 1970

Firebase O'Reilly, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

Captain Cunningham finally got the word this morning. Finally.

We awoke at 0700 hours. Lieutenant McDonald had came in with a damn blowhorn and screamed that thing right in our ears!

"Wake the fuck up, soldiers!" he said, "We're gonna go get some fuckin' Charlie!"

We were tired as fuck and my back was aching. Plus, I smelled. Smelled like mud and canned food. I went to the makeshift showers and showered for fifteen minutes.

Afterward, that was when Cunningham gave us the briefing: We were tasked to assault an LZ (Landing Zone) at Hill 805, "805" being for eight-hundred five meters that was secured by Bravo Company who were now at Ripcord.

The assault was to be done with Delta Company from 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry Regiment. It was another 101st Airborne unit but It hadn't been involved in the largest fighting around Ripcord.

At the end of the briefing, he gave us the official new radio callsigns, from our battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Andre Lucas.

Then at 0900, we got breakfast. Powdered eggs, baked potato (Yeah, okay; instead of dehydrated ones), sausage patties, and two small pancakes. The sausage and pancakes were usually the best. The eggs were not the best as they were powdered and well, potato is potato, so not much I can say about that!

Lieutenant McDonald, Lieutenant Bienstock from 1st Platoon, Lt. Eldrige from 2nd, and Lieutenant Vasgersian (Vas-Ger-See-In) from 3rd Platoon were evaluating the official battalion SOI (Signal Operating Instructions) which contained the callsigns.

We went back to our hooches and spent an hour of weapon cleaning and maintenance on our vehicles. They kept on playing For What It's Worth by Buffalo Springfield on our little radio.

Good tune.

"I've never asked this question but I just feel like I should get it off my chest." Bell sighed.

"What is it?" Wallace asked.

"Like do you guys truly know what we're fighting for? Because I sure as hell don't know why I'm here, and better yet why we're here in this fucking country." Bell said.

"Freedom?" Nance was putting ammo into each clip individually, round by round. He would shove the clip in next, pull the bolt of the gun rapidly over and over again, and then take the clip out and begin the whole process again.

Sergeant Clarke shaked his head and quietly giggled.

"Man, you new guys don't know shit," He said. "You think we waste all these gooks for freedom? This is not some god-damn patriotic World War II bullshit, this is a slaughter."

He continued on. "And guess who's paying for it, getting casualties, and getting protested? Us. I'm only twenty-seven years old and I've seen a guy get his body split in half into a mangled mess by a damn land mine. This ain't the war people understand back in The World."

"Aww, motherfucking please...." Wallace said. "You think you are the only one? Stop being so damn arrogant, man."

"I'm arrogant? Okay." Sergeant Clarke exhaled.

"Hey you guys gonna set up the mosquito netting? I don't want my black ass to be bitten by some damn bugs probably working for the Viet Cong." I said, hopefully trying to cut off a confrontation.

Wallace and Clarke looked at me like I had said something wrong. Maybe I did.

I was in the wrong war.

We started packing up. I took four hand grenades, ten magazines, and tied my flak jacket to my rucksack, just in case shit got 'real'. We were also told to stack up on as much supplies as we could, because It wasn't known if we would be on the hill for a lengthy period of time.

I was scared, really scared. We didn't even know how much contact was on the hill, we were just tasked to assault and capture it. I put my hand on my chest and felt my heart beating like crazy.

We all walked out of our hooches and then the pilots and door gunners boarded the choppers. I was holding on to my M16, real tight and then I boarded the chopper, stumbling inside.

Mission Begun.

Chapter Fifteen - On The Ground
1120 Hours (11:20 AM)

July 10, 1970

Hill 805, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

We ascended off at 1030 Hours. No one said anything on the ride.

I felt my heart beating so fast, I thought I was gonna faint or have a heart attack. I never felt so nervous in my life and all the butterflies were in my stomach.

Johnson looked through the doors with big darting eyes, the type of eyes of someone you saw who was determined and wanted to win. Greene was biting his fingernails and squinting his eyes. Nance sat with a blank expression; Bell was drinking from his canteen and Clarke had his helmet under his ass.

"Hey Sarge, why do you keep your helmet under there?" Nance said.

"Just in case someone wants a grenade up my butt." Clarke grinned and then the rest of us did.

We started to approach the LZ. I prayed in my head to god that It wouldn't be hot.

The door gunners looked out and signaled the chopper pilot It was clear.

Thank God. I hope I didn't use enough prayers.

The chopper stopped a few feet from the ground and we hopped out, one by one. We settled down and then Captain Cunningham started speaking to Captain Hughes from Delta Company, 2/501.

Hughes went back to his men and then Cunningham gave us the deal.

"Okay, change of plan. Lieutenant Colonel Lucas has tasked us to proceed to another LZ two hundred meters west and 2/501 will capture the hill. Stay sharp and shoot anything that isn't American. Move out."

Captain Cunningham put our platoon on point and McDonald in-turn placed our squad on the point, leading the platoon. We were walking to the side of the hill, throught thick shrubs, trees and bushes.

Shit, if we were ambushed, we would be cut up to shreds and confusion would happen. I got scared when I thought of it. I told myself not to think of it and attempted to think positive, but I knew It didn't mean much.

Just stay calm, and you'll be alright....

The sun began to rise and everything looked beautiful. The sky was clear, empty with bright sunshine. The morning breeze flowed through the trees and vegetation, and it felt good as it touched me.

The birds were chirping. There were mosquitoes buzzing around and I was swatting them with my M16. You never wanted to get bitten by mosquitoes. They weren't as bad as the fire ants but they still were a pain in the ass.

I dropped my ruck and fitted on my flak jacket. It was just too much to tie it to the ruck and hump even more weight. I put it back on, feeling like a thousand pounds, and then put my ruck back on, feeling like another thousand pounds. Man, you gotta love Vietnam.

WHACK WHACK WHACK!

Three rounds, just like that. We dove for cover and then out of coincedance, I had my helmet under my rear end.

"Hey what the fuck just happened Cap'?" Lieutenant Vasgersian said.

"I don't know. Stay sharp."

We moved up and then saw what had happened.

"You fucking idiot! What the fuck do you think you are shooting at??! You working for the Viet Cong?!" A sergeant from 1st Platoon was ruthlessly reprimanding a small private. The private had apparently fired the three shots.

"Sir, I thought I saw a Viet Cong under some bushes. It was a water buffalo....." The private sighed.

The sergeant grappled him by the collar."You're a fucking kid! A fucking kid! You think you're a damn paratrooper but you're a fucking kid! If you were a friggin' paratrooper you wouldn't be shooting at nothing in fucking Vietnam!"

Captain Cunningham came over and stopped the commotion.

"Aye aye, calm your shit down, soldier. It was a mistake, leave the boy alone. Let's just proceed."

The sergeant let go of the the young private and shot him a dirty look. Captain Cunningham told him to calm down and get shit right.

"You okay, soldier?" Cunningham asked the private.

"Yeah, I'm really sorry. I just thought---"

"It's okay soldier. Ain't no VC gonna be over here when the Screamin' Eagles comin' through. CURRAHEE!"

And we all replied "HOOAH!" with enthusiasm.

We continued on.

"Hey Steve, you think you can handle the sixty?" Greene grinned and continued his gum chewing.

"Yeah, you playin' man. I'm carrying a damn flak jacket, don't play yourself."

He laughed and then we stopped.

"Hey Captain, I think we got a bunker!" Sergeant Clarke motioned Cunningham to come over.

"Alright Sergeant, get some of your men to evaluate it. First and Second Platoon, protect our rear! Third and Fourth Platoon, protect the men in the bunker! Let's go!"

"Hey Clarke, I'm coming with you guys!" Lieutenant McDonald said.

Awww shit. That meant our squad was going in. Fuck.

We lowered down and jumped in the bunker. We moved forward and then I kicked in the bunker door and we proceeded in.

"Hey It's clear!" McDonald yelled back.

"Wait, LT. Hold up. I think we got some intel over here." Sergeant Clarke pulled out his flashlight.

"Hey McDonald when the fuck we gonna get outta here?" Wallace was anxious. He frantically looked around the bunker.

"When the Sergeant is finished. Help him out."

Me, Wallace, and Greene helped Clarke dig out the stuff under the bunker. Astonishing.

We found ten AKs and three RPGs. We even found seven captured M60s. Then there was maps. Detailing NVA moving positions through out the A Shau, where there caches were. Amazing.

"Whoa, HOLY FUCKING SHIT! We'll bring this back to the Captain." Lieutenant McDonald.

Then we saw another bunker door, about a ten-twenty feet where we were. McDonald told Bell and Nance to search it to see if there was anymore intel.

They walked over to it, weapons raised. Bell kicked in the door and then Nance proceeded in.

BOOM!

The blast knocked all of us down. The shockwave was crazy and nearly leveled the whole bunker. The damn other door leading to the room had been mined.

I looked down and felt blood on my dripping down from my forehead. I looked into the reflection of a broken piece of metal and realized I had gotten hit by shrapnel on my forehead. I looked at the rest of my body and realized everything was still intact. Okay, good.

I looked over and saw Nance. Huge, protruding pieces of shrapnel leaked blood in a constant motion from a hellish wound on the chest. Blood was gushing out of his mouth and his legs barely hanged on from a few lines of dangled flesh.

Bell was miracously okay. He had been wearing his flak jacket and It was all sliced up and he had a few minor blood wounds on his arms and legs. He also had a nose bleed.

The rest of us barely made it out alive.

"Oh god... Medic! I need a fucking medic! MEDIC!" Lieutenant McDonald screamed out the bunker. He was trapped under a large piece of debris!

I looked and then I saw the room began to be engulfed in flames. I quickly improvised. Greene was shaken up but alive. Greene and I grabbed Bell and dragged him out. He collasped under us but we still got him out.

The rest of the platoon ran in and then began escorting everyone else out. Then they ran back in and tried everything they could to pull McDonald out. The wood was just too heavy.

Nothing we could do. If we stayed there, then we would all die. We all bailed and ran out the bunker, and we left McDonald there. WE FUCKING LEFT HIM THERE!

I could hear him screaming, screaming for us to come back. He was crying at the top of his lungs to help him out but there was nothing we could do.

Then it was over. It burned down. We walked away from it. The smell of burning flesh filled our noses. Greene was crying and Bell said nothing, absolutely nothing. Sergeant Clarke went all crazed and started shooting at nothing.

"These fucking gooks! I HATE ALL OF THEM! Every single man, women, and child knew the fucking NVA planted the damn mines but didn't say nothing!! FUCKING NOTHING! NOW THE LT IS DEAD!"

I jumped on him and calmed him down. He cried, and I comforted him.

Wallace was barely okay and had been shaken up by the blast. He had no expression.

By the time It was 1120, Nance was dead. We called in the choppers and they escorted Nance out. A few of the medics gave me and Bell stiches for our wounds and that was that.

The chopper pilots asked what was going to happen to the LT's body and we said nothing. And then they asked Cunningham if we had the dog tags and he said no. Then the pilots sighed.

"What? How the hell we gonna let his folks know if he's dead if we ain't got no damn dog tags?" Wallace said.

"I don't know, I really don't fucking know!" Cunningham replied.

Okay, then. I wonder how would it feel if I wrote a letter to his family stating how he actually died.

No. I would never do it. It would be too much.

Yes and we're sorry.

McDonald deserved to be honored. He was a good soldier and he died in unfortunate circumstances.

Yes and we're sorry.

Or maybe he would just go MIA. Missing in Action, just like that. They would never list him dead, he just simply disappeared, July 10, 1970, A Shau Valley, Republic of Vietnam.

Yes and we're sorry.

I really didn't know what we would do.

Chapter Sixteen - The Shits
1400 Hours (2:00 PM)

July 12, 1970

Hill 805, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

We were camped at the LZ two hundred meters southwest from the top of Hill 805. Delta Company from 2/501 had captured the hill at around 0200 Hours and are camped at the top of the hill. We had captured more weapon caches and destroyed more bunkers on our way to the LZ.

The camp we had made was nothing more than tents made out of our ponchos that we all set up as living quarters. We added wood on the side that wasn't covered and put a sleeping bag as a bed and a floor.

There were no showers.

We didn't have any portable bathrooms or latrines, so we just took a big pipe that was deep and was long in length as a "bathroom." We would urinate in there.

We had a rusty barrel for the other task. Self explanatory.

The company also had no mess hall or anything, so we were forced to eat lousy C-Rats from our supplies. They weren't the greatest in the world and some of us had WWIII-era rations, courtesy of the lousy U.S. Army.

So It wasn't much of a base, just a small, cheesy-looking camp that we thought of as our base.

Later after Nance and McDonald got killed, everything got worse. During the night that day (10th), It rained heavily and I silently weeped under the poncho I was sleeping in. Captain Cunningham was sitting against a tree, eyes glistening with tears, trying to smoke a cigarette.

I walked over to him.

"Sir..... Do you think we're gonna make it out of here?" I asked.

"I don't know, Corporal. You men.... mean everything. I can't promise that all of you will make it out of here, but I can promise we will stick together, no matter what. Got that?" He said.

"Yes sir."

I caught him trying to smile at me and he gave me a thumbs up sign. I gave him the thumbs up sign too. He was just trying to stay positive but the deaths were just so unexpecting. Just the freak nature of it: A land mine planted in a NVA bunker door for Americans to come in and died..... Horrible.

Clarke was currently Platoon Leader until further notice. (because he was highest ranking enlisted man in the platoon) Our squad only contained five of us. The word was everyone were getting short on men and replacements weren't coming in.

When I woke up in the morning today, I had the most terrible pain of my life. I thought I may have gotten the Black VD or the Jungle Rot, as they called it.

I remember in the orientation lecture (essentially a discussion held to be an authorization for troops to be oreintated to a combat phase) a few days after arriving at Tan Son Nhut, the Major was telling us what to not get over here and what to be aware of.

"That Black VD will fry your dick off before you become sober," he said. "Runs through the veins, kills the sperm; lose your damn manhood. Send your ass to another gook island we call the Philippines and you'll be there getting your dick fried off and you'll die a slow, painful death."

I didn't believe it.

"Agent Orange will cook your insides out like a damn baked potato coming out of the oven. You'll be feeling like a dead VC by the time you only fifty because of it. Next thing you know, you'll be shitting rotten oranges out of your ass, too."

I didn't believe that, either.

"Don't get me started with the Jungle Rot. You get that shit, good luck with your diarrhea. You shit so much, gonna feel like they teared a grenade up your ass. Don't forget, you're also gonna eat penicillin for breakfest, too."

I was starting to believe it all as I laid down with horrible lower back pain. I could barely stand up and Clarke asked what was going on.

"I just woke up with extreme pain." I said.

"Do you need to dump?" He looked me up and down.

"Come to think of it, yes!" I replied.

He sighed. "Yeah, dude you have the shits."

"The what...?"

"This shits? Diarrhea? The runs?" He raised his eyebrow.

"Oh... What do I do know?"

"Eh, you'll be fine. Beware you're gonna be shitting your guts for like the whole damn day."

Yeah, thanks.

"I will get some Kleenex for you real quick from supply. You really lucky we got soft Kleenex or the wiping woulda' been more painful than the actual shit!" He grinned but then he said he would still get it.

Even better.

I walked over to a barrel about thirty meters from the camp and then covered a poncho over it. I checked the time and It was 0800 hours. Then I proceed to defecate all my insides out.

What made it worse was that the barrel was all muddy from the rain, so I got mud on my ass (not comfortable).

0845. Again. Shit the rest of my guts out and I skipped out on morning chow.

1000 hours, It happened again. I thought I was gonna be alright but all of a sudden, It returned in an instant.

1030 hours. I didn't have anything to shit out, so I just shit out murky water. My anus was starting to hurt, literally. The squad kept laughing but at the same time feeling bad for me.

1126. This time Greene came with me and he went on another barrel.

"Man you should right a song about this," He said. "Smelly Ass by Steven Perrier."

"Greene, go die."

I couldn't believe that it happened again at 1235 hours. This time, I even puked and the smell of the poop was making me nauscious. I got really scared and thought I really had the Jungle Rot.

We would have "lunch" at 1310 hours. It was really just getting together and eating the shitty C-Rats. Of course, I skipped out.

Then it reached 1400 hours and I was starting to feel better. I wasn't crapping every thirty minutes and now I was feeling hungry.

Looking for some C-Rats, I found "Ham and Motherfuckers." It was essentially the worse meal out of all. It wasn't even actually named "Ham and Motherfuckers.", it was really Ham and Lima Beans but It was so bad, we had to nickname it.

Greene trade his Turkey Loaf for mine. I thanked him and he said I needed it after shitting my guts out.

Ate it and went to bed. I started having dreams about our unit going into a hamlet and we massacred the civilians after a guy got killed by a sapper. In the dream, some men even raped some Vietnamese women.

I woke up in horror and I was sweating intensely.

God-damn, was I evil for thinking about shooting and raping people???

Chapter Seventeen - In peace, sons bury their fathers. In war, fathers bury their sons - Herodus
2045 Hours (8:45 PM)

July 12, 1970

Hill 805, A Shau Valley, South Vietnam

I had written a letter to McDonald's wife at 1700 hours, which Cunningham gave me the task to do. He had brought me over to his tent and we talked.

"I can't do it." I said.

"Why not?" he asked.

"I just don't. I don't deserve it." I turned away.

"C'mon, soldier. If he were stuck in the boonies right now, you would write something for him!"

"But he's not in the damn boonies, sir! He's DEAD!"

For about a moment, It was silent.

"Look, Steven. Look. He's in the boonies but he's just in too deep. It wasn't the way It was suppose to be. He wasn't suppose to die and I feel guilt for making your damn squad go in that fucking bunker,"

"If you're feeling guilt, how about you write the letter, sir."

I walked out the tent. He didn't reprimand me or scream at me. From the corner of my eye, he shaked his head and turned away.

I came over to the squad and they asked me what had happened. Wallace and Clake were trying to get along and were playing soccer around the camp.

"He asked me to write a letter to McDonald's wife, I couldn't do it."

"Really?" Greene raised his eyebrow. "Because he told me to write a letter to the parents of Nance. Couldn't do that shit either."

"Who is he to lay this shit on us???" Bell was pissed.

"Don't know." Greene said

A big, fat rat jumped on Greene's bunk seconds later.

"Holy shit, get that thing!" I said.

Bell grabbed a twenty-two air rifle, and shot the rat dead on Greene's tent. Greene was mad and told Bell he had better had his tent cleaned before he came back or something was gonna happen.

Greene and I left Bell in the tent with the rat and we started playing soccer with the rest of the squad for hours, and hours.

Then we had C-Rats to eat again and then Cunningham called us for a mission briefing.

"Hey Steve, why do you think the LT and Nance got it?" Greene was holding the sixty by the shoulder, in a crouched position. I could see him ache as he held his rucksack.

It was the night. Observation Duty, fifty-meters away from the base camp. It was the mission briefing.

We were tasked to observe any enemy movement around Ripcord and other surrounding hills. Once they were spotted, we would call in the artillery and air strikes and then pound the fuck out of the area.

The owls were chirping and the fucking mosquitoes were on my neck. I kept trying to swat them with my M16 but nothing was working. Behind us, were the rest of the platoon.

I answered Greene.

"I don't know. I guess It was their time to die." I said.

"Man, I feel like they died for nothing, you know?" Greene replied.

"I get what you mean. Ain't no one back in The World like this war in fucking July 1970. You'd have to be a damn hardcore-conservative idiot to support this shit by now."

"You know I thought about burning my draft card and go to Canada," he said. "But I didn't wanna forget everything I've done in my life just to avoid a damn war. I don't regret not going nor do I support coming over here, but I just feel like our time is done over here."

We were interrupted by the sounds of claymore mines detonating.

"What the fuck is goin' on?" Wallace said.

"I don't know!" Cunningham was looking around the hill.

He took the radio from Sergeant Grear and started calling Delta Company from 2/501.

"Whiskey-Delta Actual, this is Hitman-Alpha; explosives heard about two-hundred meters from my AO! What's the deal, over?"

Cpt. Hughes gave an answer.

"Hitman-Alpha, that was the un-noticed detonation of mechanical ambushes set up by my troops. Apologies, Captain Cunningham."

That was it. It ended and we all went back to our observation positions. It was 2030 hours.

We watched and we waited. In the time we waited, we ate and rested.

All of a sudden at 2045, we heard loud, sporadic fire from 2/501.

"Holy fucking SHIT!" Bell said.

We could see the damn muzzle flashes with our binoculars and the fire trails. First you heard small pops of the M16s. Next, you heard the M60s in short, loud riffs. Then you heard the popping of the M79, sounding like a bottle of champagne being open.

"Objective! Shoot any of these zipperheads coming near the 501st! Let's go, let's go!" Cunningham raised his M16 and started firing pops of rounds forward.

All of us then opened up and It was chaos. Greene sent a round from the sixty that whizzed by my ear and had my whole head ringing.

We poured heavy fire into the NVA coming towards 2/501. I saw Greene cut a whole fucking squad of NVA with the sixty, one by one, in an instant of five seconds. They ran with little AKs and then got smashed by rounds in their torso and head.

Their bodies simply just lost balance and just fell backwards after they got hit.

If they got hit repeatedly more than needed, they began to flop in the air like ragdolls and landed a few feet in the mud.

Next thing you know, we're taking fire!

Fortunately they didn't know our exact position, as Cunningham stated, so the rounds just kicked up the dirt and whizzed way past us.

It was over.

"Look for wounded!" Cunningham.

We searched around and had no casualties. Thank God!

We sat down.

"That shit was intense," Sergeant Clarke said. "You guys did a good job."

Sergeant Grear saw us speaking and came over. He had just shaved using a razor he had brought with shaving cream.

"NVA don't stand no chance! Hey, they ain't got nothin' against us, man!" I looked to see if Grear was joking but he wasn't. It was weird, he made it sound like a sports competition or something.

"Yeah, okay." Clarke looked up at him.

Cunningham began to radio 2/501 and they said half of their damn D. Company was wounded and several men were killed.

"They were taking hell up there. Charlie don't play around, everyone used to think they couldn't put up a damn fight but the 501st has their damn hands full." Cunningham said.

"We got our damn hands full, too." Wallace came over with the water can and everyone took a bottle. He looked frantic and surprised.

"No shit, we do, soldier. Your damn platoon leader is dead. Fucking dead! Because I told your damn squad to evaluate a fucking mined bunker!" he said.

Everyone saw what Cunningham had just said.

For a moment everything was silent. We just looked at Cunningham. His eyes were teary and he saw that Greene's were too but they didn't concile. Wasn't no time for sympathy. Just wasn't.

Wallace passed out the rest of the water bottles and that was that.

Deep down, I really did feel the need to concile each other. I wanted to cry my life out, share the pain with everyone else, but It just wasn't always the time for that. I would just cry late in the night for our dead in my tent and try my best to hide it.

We needed to move on, but deep down, we just couldn't. Well at least I couldn't. For me, death was something I couldn't forget. It was so stressful, painful, and depressing.

I don't think I would ever be the same like I was before coming to Vietnam. Ever. I would be a different man, a different soldier, for the rest of my days.

God have mercy.