No one seemed to worry about me when I woke up from those dreams; they said they heard me mumbling and moaning and thought I was having a nightmare. It apparently happened quite a few times, as once or twice I was woken up by them, asking if I was alright. They weren’t annoyed by it, or made fun of it; we were all in that same mentality. It was different, but the same. Everyone had their own views and ways of dealing with them, but it was all the same basic functions; like being on the same page, but reading different sentences.
The world we were in now not only felt new, we saw its inhabitants were dangerous. We went out there, always on edge, just waiting to get pounced on. Silver once compared it to the old western settlers getting jumped by Indians, the difference being that we didn’t plan on staying.
There were a few more attacks, a couple more trips we had to make to find the bad guys; one or two more Americans fell dead. We, or at least I, never got used to it; just numb. The feeling of death around you, seeing it in action, I just tried to ignore it and get back to my work. For one reason or another, time went by quickly at our little fort in the middle of the Wild West. It flew by and before we knew it, November of 1965 was coming up on us.
Over that time more forces began to flow into South Vietnam; both American and Communist. Much of South Vietnam’s backyard in the jungles became the hiding ground for the VC, who established some limited control with the help of North Vietnam’s army. Command must have thought it smart to try and hit them before any more could slip in and consolidate their hold, and I couldn’t rally argue with it, nor can I now; but we underestimated them all the same.
At the beginning of November, we were reassigned to the 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. This division had been around for a while, and now was known as the Air Cav for specializing in air-assaults like us. Like the first time, we weren’t too happy about being yanked from our unit. When we were given their Divisional patch of the yellow-black shield to replace our Screaming Eagle, we instead sewed them on directly under the Eagle, showing where we were from originally. The Cavalry troops also picked with us a bit. They joked that since airborne units were supposed to drop behind enemy lines, and because all the territory outside the base was pretty much grey, they should just scatter us out from our planes across the country. We’d respond on how they should be on horseback chasing Charlie through the jungle with sabers and blaring bugles.
On the 10th of November, we were briefed on the details of our upcoming operation. Our intelligence had been able to nail down an area where a large number of enemy troops were supposed to be. They told us that around 200 or so enemy troops were hiding out on top of Chu Pong Mountain after they had tried unsuccessfully to overrun a camp of U.S. Special Forces troops. On the 14th, we’d be going with the 1st Battalion/7th Cavalry Regiment into La Drang Valley.
November 14th, 1965
10:40 Hours
La Drang Valley, Vietnam
“How’d the Cardinals do this year?” I asked Lee. “I wasn’t keeping up.”
“1st place against the Yankees; that’s the seventh World Series we’ve won,” he replied. “Man, I wish I was back in St. Louis.”
Lee wasn’t lying when he said he was good at baseball, though I never really thought he was lying, just overestimating. He spent a good deal of free time playing it, and had been offered a few scholarships to schools for his skill. Like me, he decided to go into the army instead. Why he chose to come here to Vietnam first I’ll never know.
It was hard to hear him over the whine of the helicopter’s rotors. The flight to the landing zone itself, LZ X-ray, only took about ten minutes. The LZ was located at the base of the mountain, so we’d have to work fast once we got off.
“You guys know we’ll be seeing action today, so no messing up,” I ordered. “No freezes, no jitters, no losing your shit in the middle of a firefight; we’ve gone into fights before, this one’s just a little bigger.”
“We’ll be ok, sir,” Bishop assured me. “We aren’t FNGs anymore; we’ve seen death.”
“Exactly; we are experienced and we are well-trained. That’s why they asked us to come.”
“One mike!” the pilot reported.
One minute until it all started up.
“Eyes open when we’re off; they could be waiting for us. Move together and secure the LZ; establish a defensive perimeter and wait for the rest of the battalion to come down.”
I could see LZ X-Ray out from the side; just a small open patch in the middle of a jungle. Artillery had been tearing up the mountain for hours, and some of the armed helicopters fired rockets blindly at it. They let up as we began to approach.
“30 seconds!”
We were already skimming the tops of the trees when we got there. The Huey slowed and began to descend on the circular opening, ever so slowly toughing the ground. As soon as it settled, we were off, looking around for any signs of movement in the tree line. Save for the commotion of the other troops dis-mounting, everything was calm.
I rallied my squad together and moved towards the tree line, making way for the other helicopters to unload their compliment of troops. We still found nothing once we got there, nor did our cavalry allies find anything in the immediate vicinity of the Landing Zone.
“Got anything?” Captain Nadal of A Company called.
“Clear!” a response came.
“Clear here!”
“Clear over here!”
“Alright, One-Oh-One guys are with me and Alpha Company,” he ordered. “Set up defenses to the in front of the mountain and hold in place until the rest of the troops are on the ground.”
“Hooah, sir,” I replied, following him in that direction.
We could see several men running about in an organized chaos. Most got out of the way and into the jungle with their units, making way for the choppers. A few stayed behind and began setting up a command post.
“How long do you think it’ll take the enemy to respond, sir?” I asked.
“Dunno, there aren’t supposed to be that many of them; they might just turn tail and run, which is why we need to hurry with getting the rest of the troops on the ground.”
Hit-and-run had always been the VC tactic, but would they follow it now?
“Do you think they’ll run, Captain?”
“I wouldn’t,” he said. “Just in case, we’re setting up defenses right here, near this dry creek bed. Dig in and watch for any movement.”
We did just that, digging foxholes deep into the ground. They were dug large and deep enough to encompass one’s entire body to sit in. They holes were spaced out well, not too close together, but close enough so that soldiers could support one-another. We worked fast, knowing the enemy could jump out of the woods at any moment. I was relieved when I finished mine, slouching down inside, protected by the moist earth.
“Freeze!”
I shot back up to see what was happening.
“Whoa, watch it! Hold fire, friendly!” a soldier yelled from the jungle in front of us.
“Where’re you from?” Nadal questioned.
“Bravo Company, we’re moving ahead of you guys.”
“And why are you back here?”
“We found this,” he said, pulling up a young boy in raggedy clothing. “VC; we’re got the jump on him, and I was ordered to take him back.”
“Ok, you go ahead and get back to your unit,” the Captain ordered. “Sergeant Denell, take this one back to the CP.”
“Yes sir,” I replied, nudging the prisoner forward and keeping my M16 aimed at his back. “C’mon, get going!”
The walk didn’t take long, as the command post wasn’t too terribly far away. The prisoner didn’t resist much, as his hands were already bound and it wasn’t rocket science to understand that running would be suicide. Covered in dry mud and a few cuts, he seemed rather demoralized; and I hate to admit that I actually felt a little bad for him.
The large open area was still abuzz with activity. The command post was one of the hotspots, with, Lieutenant Colonel Moore being the most active; giving orders and organizing what he could. He noticed me moving towards his area with the captive and immediately understood what it meant.
“Prisoner?” he asked.
“Yes sir.”
“From where?”
“B Company picked him up.”
“Good, I’ll get a translator over here and we’ll start interrogating; we need any info we can get.”
Moore brought over one of the ARVN liaisons and he began talking to the prisoner. Moore would order the liaison to ask a specific question, and he would ask the prisoner in their native tongue; incomprehensible to me. It sounded rather humors, how most of their sentences ended on high notes rather than deep or low like ours; almost like an opposite.
The prisoner was apparently rather willing to help. The ARVN finished translating something and stared a minute, spoke to him again, and then answered to Moore. Moore, in turn, seemed rather unhappy with it.
“Bullshit!” he exclaimed, waking me up from another daydream. “He’s lying; no way there could be that many.”
“How many of what, sir?”
“Troops; there’s three whole battalions up on that mountain,” he said. “That’s over 1600 enemies just staring down at us!”
“Oh Christ,” I mumbled to myself.
“Get back to A and report the situation immediately!” he ordered.
I didn’t waste time, taking off back down the path I came. 1600 of them against only 200 of us; what the hell had we gotten into? How could intelligence miss so many men? Surely the bombardment had killed a good number off, but what if it hadn’t? One thing was for sure: the enemy was going to attack soon.
“Sergeant Denell, what did the LT have to say?” the Captain asked me.
“S-sir,” I answered, catching my breath. “Interrogation reports a greater mass of enemy present on the mountain the previously thought.”
“How many?”
“He said around three battalions.”
“Three!? Christ, and the helicopters are still landing; they really screwed the fucking pooch on this!”
“What’d we do?”
“Bravo is already advancing ahead, probably into trouble. Dig in deep and get ready to cover their retreat and defend the LZ; we’re right in front of that damned mountain, and that means right in front of those Charlie.”
I had already dug my hole, so there wasn’t too much more to do.
“C Company is on our left flank, and part of Bravo on our right, but they might collapse if they come under too much pressure.”
“Should we go help them, sir?”
“Let’s worry about our sector; Bravo’s probably been warned by now,” he said. “All we can do right now is wait.”
That was what we did, wait to get attacked. It was nerve-racking; the idea of over a thousand and a half enemy troops swarming towards you struck a deep fear. We were experienced, but those were fighting patrols. This was a major battle, and we were the ones being attacked now.
I slid back down into my foxhole, mentally preparing myself. I heard a few distant sounds from the right, from Bravo’s direction. They sounded like small pops, becoming more and more frequent as time drew on. Weapons fire, no doubt; Bravo had found the enemy, or rather vice-versa, and was fighting with them heavily.
Time continued to drag by and weapons fire was heard to the left now, near the center of our line. We were dug in where Bravo and Alpha met in the line, and the VC was attacking Alpha’s center, judging by the distance of the noise. It felt like both sides were taking punishment, and now it was creeping in on me.
“Get back, go!”
To the right, several cavalry troops ran back to their line, all from Bravo.
“2nd platoon’s cut off!” one reported. “Enemy forces headin’ this way!”
“Eye’s open,” someone warned. “They’re out there.”
“I’ve got-”
“Contact!” Silver yelled, firing a few shots from his M14.
Sure enough, fire returned from the trees. It was hard to tell exactly from where, but the jungle here wasn’t quite as thick as some other areas we’d seen. We could easily see a good deal of movement in front of us, along with shouting and yelling in babble I knew as Vietnamese.
The men along our line returned fire; some waiting for targets, others firing wildly into the bush. The auto-riflemen, Corporals Lee and Davis, fired their M60 machine guns into the forest; their job wasn’t too kill individual enemies one at a time, but to put heavy fire on them and stop their movement and actions. Their guns chattered long and heavily as their bullets arced across the front in the general area of the enemy.
I took my own aim, looking down the familiar sights of my gun. I searched through the area in front of me, looking for a target. Instinctively, I watched for movements, muzzle flashes, tracers; anything to give me an idea as to an enemy combatant’s possible location. I spotted a VC moving from tree trunk to tree trunk towards our lines; bad move. I timed it on his third sprint and after a quick burst he tumbled into the dirt.
I didn’t feel anything from that, not a single thing. The idea of killing another human didn’t fill my mind with philosophical debate; there was more important work to be done. Another Charlie was firing his AK from behind a broken tree, near where his buddy was running from. Another burst, another dead man, and again I didn’t care one bit. It became so simple; one less enemy, one step closer to home.
“Taylor,” Bravo’s Sergeant Benjamin called. “I got a target!”
“Where?” the grenadier asked, readying his weapon.
“Two targets; one with an MG, another with an AK. Both hiding in that bush, on that small rise to the right.”
“I can’t see them!”
“Next to the tree that’s broken in half! Hurry up!”
“I see the flashes!” Taylor reported. “Ok, firing!”
The PFC raised his M79 launcher at the target; it was still a ways to go before the grenade launcher attachment was actually made, so he carried an entirely different weapon for it. The 40mm explosive round thumped out and flew into the thick bush, making a small, powerful explosion. Two bodies dropped out of it, one of which was missing an arm.
The enemy was charging down on us, moving from cover to cover and firing heavily as they inched ever closer to our line of defense. Soldiers in the foxholes weren’t entirely immune, and one unlucky shot would prove their vulnerability. One of the cavalrymen, standing up to fire, took one in the throat as an example.
This dangerous game continued for some time. The VC ran from cover to cover to get to us. We kept popping out of our holes to get shots out on them.
The battle didn’t end with one decisive action, but rather slowed down progressively. The enemy’s fire began to slacken off and targets became scarcer until there were none. No order to cease fire was given, it just stopped in its own; and it seemed like everyone knew the enemy could be back on us at any moment.
The fire in our sector calmed down, but I could still hear off in the distance. The far-off chatter of weapons fire was endless, as well as a powerful sounding thumps every now and then. It was most likely artillery, pounding some other attacking VC force. It made me wonder if we could have gotten some to help with our battle.
The area wasn’t exactly church quiet, either. Here and there, the moans and occasional screams of wounded and dying men replaced the deafening roar of battle. I remember one guy who’s finger was nailed by a ricocheting round, forcing him to go back for an amputation. Another poor boy was standing up to fire when a grenade landed in front of his hole and splintered his upper body with shrapnel; he didn’t look a day over 20.
I didn’t say anything; there was nothing to say. Others were giving orders and instructions for one task or another, but mine was just to watch out for any more bad guys that might be coming back. I only broke silence when Bishop called to me to ask if I was ok.
“Yea,” I answered simply, then shut my mouth again.
I was transfixed by the area in front of me. I stared blankly off into space, watching for any signs of activity. It’s amazing how much of my attention it took up, as I didn’t hear Alpha’s Captain calling me.
“Staff Sergeant!”
“Captain Nadal, sir!” I snapped up out of my foxhole.
I shouldn’t have done that, officer or not; I wasn’t catching a sniper’s bullet in the head for a little formality.
“At ease, this is a battlefield; don’t expose yourself for something like this.”
“How’s it looking, sir?”
“Bad, we’ve been able to establish a perimeter, but we’re also surrounded by a far larger enemy,” he explained. “Parts of Alpha and Bravo will move up to try and rescue the lost 2nd platoon, but your squad will stay behind to watch the line. The sun’s stetting, which means we’ll be stuck here through the night.”
I mentally gulped at that; being stuck here, in the enemy’s jungle, at night when the helicopters and air couldn’t help you.
“Are we getting reinforcements, sir?”
“A company from 2nd Battalion, but that’s it until tomorrow,” he said. “The enemy might attack at night, so watch out for any movement; they might try to slip by.”
“Will do, sir.”
As he walked off I could see the sun setting over the horizon. Was it really that late? I was rather surprised how fast time flew in a situation like this. I did a quick investigation of my line from my foxhole, and saw all of my squad was still there. I didn’t see any orders that needed to be given, just to watch out.
After a time of what sounded like several sharp engagements from in front of us, several cavalrymen stumbled back through the shattered jungle to our lines. It was an obvious sign that their attempted relief of the lost platoon up ahead was a failure; those men would have to spend an even lonelier, scarier, night than us.
There were still some random conversations whispered and movements, but it was still rather calm as the light finally faded. The darkness filled my surroundings, and I found myself slowly slouching into my foxhole again. With my helmet falling slightly over my face, I drifted into another sleep.
“D-uh, did I fall asleep!” I shouted, shooting up. “Damn, they’ll sneak through!”
“Who’ll sneak through?”
I looked right to see Pinkie standing there, happy as always.
“Oh, uh, no one,” I answered.
Curiously, when I saw her, all my worries vanished again; though this time, it probably wasn’t the best thing.
“No… ‘one’? You mean no pony?”
This was just too adorable.
“No no,” I said, chuckling and pulling her into a hug. “I’m not a pony, remember?”
“Oh yea, I forgot,” she said. “But, I’m glad you came back to visit. You picked the perfect time, too;I knew you would!”
“What? Why?”
It was at this point I felt that I was on a hard floor, rather than the grass from the first time. Through my blurred, sleepy vision I could notice the area I was in contained several tables, chairs and other furniture. Rubbing and them and blinking, I was greeted by the sight of what looked like a party; the guests of which were all staring awkwardly at me.
“Surprise!” Pinkie yelled right next to my ear.
“You…threw a party for me?”
“Yep; I throw one for every new face in Ponyville! It helps to get everypony acquainted,” she explained. “Wait here; I’ll go find some ponies to talk!”
“Hang on, how’d you know I would be here today?”
She was gone before my question could be answered.
“Don’t worry about Pinkie,” Twilight said, trotting over and helping em up with her magic. “I’m not even sure how she does it.”
“This place is insane, you know that?”
“Well, I did think this town was a little crazy when I first moved here, too,” she admitted. “Trust me, once you get to know everypony, you’ll get used to everything.”
“Good to know,” I responded, stretching out.
“Since we never really got to it last time, do you think you could answer some questions about your world later.”
“If I’m still here later.”
Pinkie returned out of nowhere, interrupting our conversation. She was carrying another pony, a light green unicorn, without much trouble. Instead of actually setting her down, Pinkie threw her at me, hitting my chest and sending me onto my back with surprisingly little pain.
“Gah, Pinkie; what the hell!?”
“John this is Lyra, Lyra-John,” she introduced. “You guys talk a little, I’ll get some more ponies for you to meet.”
“Pinkie wait!”
It was pointless; she was gone, leaving me pinned under a unicorn with a rather surprised look on her face.
“Um…hi,” I said plainly. “So…Lyra, right?”
“Are you really a…human!?” she asked, her eyes and smile growing freakishly big.
This situation had devolved to a level of awkward and oddity I didn’t know was possible; even for dreams.
“Yea.”
“Wow, I just knew you guys were real!”
“Wait, you knew-”
“You mind if I ask some questions about you!?”
“Uh…well…I’m doing that with Twilight later, so I guess you could tag along.”
“Yes!”
Pinkie came back, this time carrying a grey Pegasus this time. As if she hadn’t learned anything from before, she dropped this one on top of us, as well, before disappearing again. It felt like I was being crushed to death, and I was slowly losing my breath.
“Hi!” she said happily, as if nothing was wrong.
Indeed, she looked rather carefree; and her eyes were a bit…off, which was rather distracting.
“Hey,” I replied weakly, trying to gather my breath. “Would you mind getting off?”
“Wha? Oh, sorry!”
She flapped her wings a few times and lifted up off us. Lyra followed, finally allowing me to get back on my feet. I took in a long, deep breath; though it being a dream, I don’t see why it mattered. Pinkie appeared with yet another poor pony only to be stopped by Twilight.
“Pinkie, maybe we should let John go at his own pace.”
“Awww, alright,” she moped. “Ok, I guess it is your party. Hope you enjoy it John!”
And I did, admittedly. The food was good, the guests were nice, and the music was entertaining; everything was comfortable. I actually hadn’t been to a real party like this in a long time. It was nice; it made me feel normal again.
The party started to quiet down after a while, and the guests began to leave. As I promised, at sat down with Twilight to tell her about Earth. Lyra was there, too, just as she said she would be; she seemed just as excited.
“Oh, what first!?” Lyra jumped in her seat.
“I kind of wanted to ask about their govern-”
“Do you guys have music!?”
“Sure do,” I replied.
“Like what?”
“Well, lots of kinds; rock, orchestra, all sorts of music.”
“Can I listen to some?”
“I don’t really know how, but maybe someday,” I told her. “But, let’s get back to Twilight.”
“Thank you,” she said. “What kind of government do you have?”
“Well, my country is a democratic-republic; we elect our leaders and are governed by a set of laws.”
“Interesting, and what is your country called?”
“The United States of America.”
“United; so it’s made up of several different regions?”
“Kinda, but all countries are divided up intro provinces or some kind of area,” I explained.
“And you said you elect your own leaders; no queens or princesses or anything?”
“Not in my country, no.”
“What about other countries.”
“Well, there are a few different kinds of government,” I explained. “England is a constitutional monarchy, so they still have a ruler.”
“Anything else?”
“Yea, there’s the kind I’m fighting against now; communism.”
“Fighting, so you’re in a war?” Lyra asked.
“Yea, but I’d prefer to save that for later.”
“Oh, ok; sorry if-”
“No, its fine,” I assured her. “Where was I, Twilight?”
“About communism?”
“Yea, right,” I said. “So I’m fighting a war against the some people who think the government style of communism is a good idea.”
“Is it bad?”
“Well, there are people who think it’s good; I’m not too fond of it. The stories I’ve heard about it just seem cruel.”
“What kind-”
“Contact!”
There was something shattering that impacted near me, causing my ears to ring a bit. My eyes opened in a flash, and were greeted by the dim light of morning; that and a good number of tracers flying over my head. I checked quickly to see if my rifle was still with me, which it was.
“John! John, you alright?” I heard Bishop yell.
“Yea, I’m up!” I replied.
My vision was still blurry and my muscles were still just warming up, but I could still make out targets and fire. I did this, cutting down a VC that was running right towards my foxhole. He probably thought it was empty; bad choice.
The two sides continued where they had left off yesterday. This time it shifted from between full on attacks and random, small gunshots at each other. All the same, it was still deadly. I was just thankful nothing happened at night that could have screwed the entire team because of my sleeping.
It’s true that time goes by fastest when you’re busy; that is especially true for combat. When you get into the thick of a fight, there are far more important things to worry about; whether or not its lunch time isn’t exactly top priority. That’s how the day went by, as the seconds, minutes, and hours blurred together.
The biggest change from yesterday was thankfully a big plus for us. We finally got air support for our battered little pocket. Hearing them roar in and seeing them flying high over us was a true blessing.
Still, even with this, the enemy attack only seemed to intensify; as if they thought the planes coming in was a signal that we were close to collapse. They would come in real close; so close that we couldn’t direct the aircraft on them. We were able to hold on, but just barely. Part of that was due to the plane’s accuracy in dropping so close to our lines. As the situation got worse, the call of ‘Broken Arrow’ was sent by the Air Force liaison; that meant pretty much every combat aircraft in Vietnam was at our disposal.
It was quite the show, watching all those planes go into attack. Some dropped regular explosives on the enemy, others used their gun; the most effective was the incendiary weapon napalm. Delivered in a canister, it was made of a gel that caught fire when exposed to air. It stuck to whatever it touched, and burned for a pretty long time. At around forty bucks a canister, it was a marvelous weapon to have.
Of course, everything is cool when it’s pointed at the enemy; it’s not so fun the other way around. With all the planes flying around, I can understand that it must have been hard to coordinate and control them. But, it has to be done to prevent disasters.
Two of the planes, F100 Super Sabres, were gliding down on an attack run; and with their heading, it was obvious they were accidentally targeting the middle of the perimeter. I looked back and saw people running to get out of the way, and the liaison was trying to wave them off, but it was just too late.
The first one dropped his ordinance, followed by the second. I prayed to God that no one would get caught in that hell. Unfortunately, some people just just…have their time, I suppose. I saw a few engineers get caught in the full fury of it, being consumed by the fire. I could feel the heat from where I was, and if there was screaming, I didn’t hear it; but the figures themselves were clear.
That’s all I remember from that day, with the little blue-on-blue incident being the most interesting part. It felt like we had suffered enough; not just me and my squad, but all of us. The moment I saw Nadal, I asked when we were being extracted.
“Not ‘till tomorrow,” he answered.
“What!? Sir, we might not be here tomorrow!”
“I know, damn it, I know. It’s just too risky to fly helicopters in right now,” he explained. “There’s nothing we can do but survive until tomorrow.”
It was just stunning to me, taking that in as I watched the sun go down, yet again. We were supposed to have been sitting on top of that mountain at the end of day one. Now we were going to spend a third day under threat of annihilation. Damn it, couldn’t anybody do anything!?
I went back to my foxhole and slumped back in, but I wasn’t falling asleep this time. I had a general idea of when we were leaving, and I was going to do what I could to keep as many men alive until then. That meant keeping watch for an attack.
I ate a few rations and got to watching the dark, shattered jungle. I did whatever I could to keep myself awake, which was actually rather easy; my adrenaline had been running all day, and the random gunshots in the dark kept it up. The artillery fire that kept pounding the mountain itself also helped.
“Deer.”
I jumped a bit at that, but relaxed; turning slowly around in the direction of the footsteps.
“Sergeant Benjamin, you know it’s not smart to get out of your foxhole.”
“Eh, I’ll take the risk, sir,” he said, crouching next to mine. “If I do get shot, that just means it was my time. Besides, I don’t think it is, anyways.”
Time; everyone’s got their own special time.
“Any particular reason you decided to pay me a visit?”
“Just wanted to make sure everyone’s awake,” he explained.
“How’s your fireteam?”
“They’re doing fine; Davis was a little skittish, but I think he’s over it now.”
“Good, good; any word from our lost platoon?”
“You didn’t hear? They rescued it earlier today; the survivors were lifted out.”
“Well, that’s nice; now Charlie can focus on us completely.”
“Don’t worry, man; we’ll get out of this,” Benjamin assured me. “Like I said, everyone has their time, and they’ll know when it comes; trust me, it’s not our time just yet. Hell, we just got here. You think fate’d let us off that easy?”
“Na, wouldn’t be fair,” I chuckled.
“So I’ll see you in the morning, right?”
“Right, Ben; you can bet on it.”
“All right.”
I went back to my watch duty, looking for movement or any sign of the attack that I was sure would come. But, to my relief, the final blow didn’t come that night, nor did it come in the morning. Everything was still and quiet, just as it should be.
The morning crept in slowly, but welcome. The area around me gradually lit up until it was full-on daytime. I was amazed that I still wasn’t tired; I guess the body just gets to a point where it understands it can’t get some things and stops asking for them. I still kept watching, almost like I was oblivious or didn’t care, until a voice shook me up.
“Guys, pack it up.”
I awoke from my trance to see Nadal standing behind us.
“C’mon airborne, you guys are coming, too.”
“We’re done, sir?”
“We’re done,” he assured me. “And a good job at that.”
This was confusing to me. Our mission had been to take the mountain and wipe out the Viet Cong there. Instead we spent three days in a pocket trying to survive. I had a hard time understanding how it was good in any way other than there was still something left.
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“Our original mission was against a few hundred enemies, not a thousand. Under the circumstances, you did fine,” he assured me. “Our mission was to kill the enemy, which we did; trust me, you did fine. Get your guys together and aboard a helicopter.”
I did that, gathering the men and moving back to the landing zone. Everyone was busy in some way, shape, or form. It was only when I got back that I saw how gruesome the battle had been. The medical station was busy with a fair share of casualties, many of who were lifted out on the choppers first.
The details were tough to see. One guy had his legs blown clean off to where I could see the shattered bone. One man was hit on the side of his head, and a surgeon was desperately performing surgery to save him. The worst was the long line of body bags; though they were covered, the knowledge of what lay underneath was heartbreaking.
I remember one detail clearly just before we boarded the chopper. One of the cavalrymen pulled a small American flag from his pocket and tied it around a shattered tree stump. This indicated that it was the sight of an American fight, and an American victory.
“Just like Iwo Jima,” he said.
Getting on board the chopper with the men, I thought on this. It didn’t seem as glorious as Iwo Jima to me; our marines didn’t leave afterwards. But, thinking on Iwo Jima itself, it wasn’t glorious, it was bloody; it was remembered for how much our men suffered there together for what was right.
That was it; that was how it was similar. We had all suffered here together, as soldiers. We fought together, died together, and won together; just like we’ve always done. We disregarded every difference we had to not just survive on our own, but to help each other survive.
We didn’t see those soldiers as cavalrymen, or guys from another unit; they were friends to us, brothers. We didn’t have any more gripes about being in another unit, or any unit; they would always be American soldiers. Even after we left the 1st Cav, we kept the patch that we got from them, as a way of remembering all the men in that unit that fought and died alongside us.
We would need that mindset; that sense of unity and comradeship. This was just the first battle, and it was going to be a long war. We had a helluva long ways to go.