|
The remnants of the team
stood there in the ever-dripping rain. The continual rain that rained
incessantly this time of the year from the over-canopy that covered the jungle
floor… seemingly a never-ceasing wet that never stopped and continued into your
sub-consciousness.
Small rivulets of water
plunged from large leaves to the moldering ground and formed small streams that
wormed through the sodden jungle floor creating a stench that permeated
everything…skin, uniforms, and equipment.
It didn’t take long for
your wet smelly uniform to rot off of your body. Pants legs were tattered and
torn, uniform blouses hung wetly from emaciated frames, and dark circles
underlined the eyes that looked far away from under the sagging brims of boonie
hats.
But the weapons were
clean, oiled, and kept dry. They, and they alone protected, nay, provided life.
Without the weapons, the grey-black futuristic rifles termed M-16 by the
government, life would have been disparagingly short. Spare magazines for these
rifles were duct-tapped to the soldier’s legs and more magazines filled the
cargo pockets of the soldiers’ battle blouses. Each man had a profusion of
weaponry from bowie knives and fat squat ugly round grenades to Ruger single-action
revolvers in .357 magnum and .44 magnum. The Ruger’s were heavy but reliable.
You didn’t notice the additional weight of the weapons until night when your
body died from fatigue and the angry aches descended upon what was left of the
human frame.
Two weeks in the bush was
a long time, a small eternity that resulted in a resolute fatigue that was
always tucked away, hidden behind the common alertness that kept you alive in
hell.
It was late 1967 and
months after Operation Junction City, a massive moving battle near the
Cambodian border that had resulted in two phases of combined allied attacks and
assaults by the jungle eating bulldozers to break the back of the North
Vietnamese and Viet-Cong in Vietnam’s war zone C.
It never was called phase
III, but instead the action had evolved into small ops and search and destroy
missions by squad and platoon size units designed to search out the Viet-cong,
hit them hard, and withdraw, practicing the same system of warfare that they
themselves had used for decades. It was working, but it was hard on the troops.
The team squatted or sat
in the ooze of the jungle floor, resting, vegetating, seeking restoration. Each
man with his own thoughts. Hit hard the day before, three members of the team
dead and left where they fell… memories of a mound of skulls and a crudely
lettered Vietcong propaganda sign hanging over the grisly pile that warned
against intrusion into VC territory. They went anyway…and three fell that day.
The soldier pulled a
plastic wrapped pouch from his pocket and undid the rubber band that held the
wrapping in place. He pulled out a letter and a set of travel orders and read
them again in the dim light of the waning day. The letter, she, she asked…"
Will you be home by Christmas?"
Home by Christmas. The
letter fluttered into his lap and absorbed the rain. Thoughts flashed through
his mind, dismembered, disjointed. She Home. Patriotism She. One never thought
of patriotism, that was for the politicians. The land of the big PX. Home,
television, scenes of demonstrations by protesting hippies and second-rate
movie stars, and ever-happy politicians and talking heads that got as close to
the war as their TV screens allowed during the evening news. There was no time
for thoughts of patriotism here, just survival. She, lovingly, soft, curling
body like a silky cat, warm, deep green eyes…She…home by Christmas.
He looked down at the
other paper, the orders. Travel home orders, short, figmo, whatever. Two days
and a wake-up… if the jungle allowed it.
And on the third day, snow
and cold, quiet, no rain, no dripping, and the smell of mildew dispersed by the
aroma of steak and eggs in the Huddle House restaurant in Amarillo. She, of the
feline look, green liquid eyes, She…home by Christmas, Christmas carols, the
salvation army bell ringers on each corner, bright clothes and no rags, soap
and clean water, all you could drink…and over all of this She.
She said, “Why don’t you
come in out of the cold. Your war’s over." © 2007 Ted L. Gragg
|
