De Oppresso Liber

De Oppresso Liber takes place during the Vietnam war, just after the TET offensive ended. Following Green beret Sgt. Daniel Hastings, his group known as "Python 1" is sent on a long range recon mission in the north of Vietnam to find a POW camp.

Behind enemy lines
Daniel Hastings felt his heart rate go up tenfold.

less than ten meteres away walked an enemy the US army feared more than any other, the Vietcong, more than 100 of them. The Green berets may be good, but five men against a hundred? They would be shaking hands with god himself within seconds. The flow of men seemed almost constant, they marched in silence, no talking, no smoking, they were silent. Practically invisible. Hastings noted the way they looked, clean, shaven, well fed. They must be close to a camp of theirs, possibly their objective.

His team, Python 1, were tasked to scout out a POW camp, supposedly hundreds of men captured in the TET offensive were being kept their. The Pythons were determined to bring them home, all of them. But, unless they could get passed Charlie the POW's would stay where they were.

Daniel had lost sight of his comrades. They had kitted themselves out before heading behind enemy lines, painted their faces green, brown and black to keep their skin covered, used state of the art uniforms which would blend them in to the dense Vietnamese jungle. His four comrades were all somewhere in the undergrowth, hopefully out of sight.

The constant flow of men seemed to thin out, Hastings figured that soon they could escape without them noticing. He was right.

One last VC walked about 20 metres behind. He seemed careless and why wouldn't he? Special forces patrols were rare this deep in North Vietnamese territory. He strolled aimlessy along the jungle path carved out by the NVA to allow easier patrols but not give away the paths they were using. To a regular soldier, it was just a bit of dead shrub, to a green beret it was a map leading all the way to Charlies house.

The carelessnes of the man attitude seemed to dissapear after he looked at Hastings, had he seen him? If so he would alert the troops up ahead and the Pythons were surely doomed, Hastings acted swiftly. He leapt up furiously and smashed his knife into CHarlies head, killing him instantly and brought him into the undergrowth with him.