The darkness of the night was so incredibly deep it would almost seem as if it were a dream. The chilling breeze ran through the dense forest and wrapped each of us in its cold grip. We can only hope they’re having as much difficulty as us. Hope is all I seem to have anymore.
We were sent on a search and retrieve mission. Top secret shit, the kind that makes you write letters to your loved ones. I wasn’t told much about the mission or even the objective. All I know is that we have to go kill some dirty commies and burn some buildings to the ground. The retrieve part of our mission is a piece of intel that headquarters wants us to grab. They say it’s a map of artillery positions. I can’t help but think they are downplaying the importance and utility of this intel. I find it hard to believe they are sending an entire squad during the night to retrieve artillery pieces that we likely already have positions on from the sky. Just another day.
We trudged forward through the foliage. Our CO would give us a whispering shout every half minute or so to make sure everyone was on path. The darkness was too heavy to bear. Once we passed the tree line things became better than worse.
“Well how the fuck are we supposed to know where we’re going?”
“Calm down Private. Let’s take a minute to think.”
In an instant the moon popped through the overcast and provided us with much needed light. It was as if the entire area had a flashlight hit on it.
“See, problem solved.”
We took four strides before our CO clambered, “well shit. Prepare to get wet.”
The only thing between us and our objective was about a football field’s length of marsh and swamp. Hoisting our rifles above our heads we sunk down to eye level with the thick and lingering fog as we marched forward in the swamp.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” Private Pilcher chirps from the back, sludge spitting out of his mouth.
“I better not be hearing any doubt in your voice Private!” our CO barked angrily.
Pilcher got quiet and stayed that way for the duration of the trip.
We hit the other side of the swamp and immediately began to dry and clean off best we could. While we brushed ourselves again trees and changed into whatever we had in our packs a humming noise began to be heard in the distance.
“We weren’t supposed to get any air support, right sir?”
“Not that I know of…”
The humming turned into a buzz.
“…so I think that may be our cue to hurry the fuck up.”
We ran double time to hide ourselves into the new plot of trees. As we ran a loud clicking bang came from the plane. We all jumped behind rocks, trees, whatever we could find. When we looked to see where the bomb had landed, we viewed the swamp we had just battled through set ablaze by the napalm.
“Ho-holy fuck! Do you think that was intended for us?”
“They’ve been doing random napalm runs to stop possible night ops. Yes and no. We were lucky either way.”
After we calmed down from the spectacle we began our march over the climbing hill of forest. The trip had become thankfully stagnant.
Once we got to the top we got a taste of our final objective. We had a perfect view down onto the base. It was less a base and more a shanty town, wooden structures littering the area with commies patrolling around.
“Well now what? I’m not even quite sure what we’re doing yet,” Private Nathan blurted softly.
“This base has important intel that HQ wants and we need to retrieve it. Simple as that.”
It wasn’t that simple.
“Time to call in our support.”
“I thought we didn’t have support?” I yelped under my breath.
“It’s not your typical air support Private.”
“I don’t care if it’s napalm, fire bombs, jeeps or my fucking grandma, just call it.”
Sergeant Stevenson spat out a request to HQ and our coordinates. After some affirmations we were left in the dark with nothing more than, “she’s on her way.”
"Her? Did I hear that right? I'm all for romanticising war Sergeant, it's why I got suckered into coming here, that and to kill some zipperheads and commies, but her?"
An answer was cut short by the sound of an in-air explosion from behind us. The noise cracked through the air like lightning. We looked up to see an orb of exploding lights illuminating the night sky. The branches of light quickly began to rip towards us.
“Get back now,” Stevenson left no room for reply.
We ran back into the forest towards the napalm crisped swamp, the sounds of bewildered Vietnamese at our back.
The lights stopped above the camp, several miles high, and then as fast as they stopped, came burning down. They sped faster and faster as we ran to take cover, not sure what was about to happen. Then they came to a blisteringly abrupt stop, about 20 or 30 feet off the ground in the middle of the camp. After that I was blinded.
My eyes burned but quickly opened to reveal all the colours of the rainbow flaming around me, having burnt the forest to cinders.
We slowly collected ourselves from our cover and began rushing to inspect the base.
“Holy sweet Jesus! That was amazing! We need to use “her” more often!”
It was fairly evident nothing was left but ash. The base and the people stationed there were gone.
“So much for intel eh Sarge?”
A small patch of ashes began to vibrate, putting us at attention and on guard. The patch rose above the ground, about 3 ½ feet, and slowly the ashes tumbled off to reveal it was a blue figure with papers in its mouth.
“Looking for this, boys?”
Just another day.