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"Visit exciting Vietnam," snarled Kelly as he hauled himself up out of the canal onto the bank. "Why do we always have to soldier in shit areas?"
The battalion struggled, splashed, submerged, and swam through an area of swamp, paddy creeks, and canals, searching for the elusive Vietcong. After two days, and one known kill to the British, the neighboring Americans claimed 140-odd. Food supplies and weapons were found, but few armed Charlies.
For several days the brigade chased the enemy through the trees and bushes, along canals and over paddies; much ammunition was expended with casualties on both sides, but not decisive actions were fought. The overwhelming air power and artillery were brought to bear when possible, but the area could only be dominated by a long-term occupation with its attendant patrols, checkpoints, and denial of resources to the enemy. Time was what Americans begrudged; upward lines on graphs were the be-all and end-all.
Enemy KIA, weapons taken, prisoners, surrendered enemy, munitions and supplies taken, refugees under government control, populated areas under the government flag---all were the subject of graphs showing "progress." Even the all-important battle for the minds had its "progress." Even the all-important battle for the minds had its "progress" reduced to statistics: so many leaflets dropped, so many lectures, broadcasts, and speeches delivered, so many enemy surrendered bearing the leaflet as a "safe-pass." Despite the USAF statistics of sorties flown, bombs dropped, trucks destroyed, and so on, and so forth, the new Soviet material arrived in ever-growing amounts: AK47 rifles, SKS carbines, RPD LMGs, 12.7mm DShK HMGs, RPG2 antitank rockets, helmets, webbing, belts, radios, mortars and mines.366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFNBVe1JjCX
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Captain Glen Hart drove the Cessna 0-1 "Bird Dog" right down to treetop level, peering under the low branches and the eaves of the houses. The little bastards had to be in there. The area was so wet and marshy the water was struck only a foot or so down. They couldn't have tunnels under the ground; therefore they must be above---in the trees, bushes, and houses. The amount of ground fire and ground contacts showed that the VC were ready to fight here.
The four Skyraiders circling above were waiting for Hart to find a target. He was almost taxiing up to the doors of the houses trying to look inside. So far today there had been no ground fire, but on the previous two days there'd been a great deal. He climbed and set a zigzagging course toward the areas being cleared by the ground forces; they might flush out something. At this early hour, the sun's rays shot in under the trees and house eaves making it easier to see in there, but it also bounced off the water's surface in the ponds, fields, and canals, in slabs of hard silver glare painful to the eyes, despite the sunglasses.
Flicking to the radio frequency allocated to the ground troops, Hart heard reports of a contact and of a mortar or artillery fire controller passing a fire mission. Then the fountains of earth, mud, water, and leaves short up. Ah, over there---climb, circle---nothing---bamboo---feathery clumps, trees, bushes, canals criss-crossing in long straight lines, scattered thatched-roof hamlets, orchards, tiny flitting figures along a canal bank.
"Dive, pull out alongside, break over the top of them, height 70 feet, Asians pointing arms, guns raised. Okay, then, the radio!"
"Grit Blue, this is Zigzag Five Three, estimated platoon of Victor Charlie on canal bank north of me, going in for smoke now, over."
"Zigzag, this is Grit, Roger, over."
Never taking his eyes from the spot where he saw the VC, Hart spiraled up, trying to keep between them and the sun. He could hear the firing directed at him, snapping over his engine noise---thunk! thunk!----as holes appeared in the wing surface. Is the fire coming from the VC he's watching? Thunk, thunk, thunk, behind somewhere, controls still okay, right---select rockets, here we go---thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk thunk. Jesus! Smoke in the cockpit! Flames under the engine cowling!----thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk, throttle back, stick and rudder---spinning---trees, water, roofs flicking past, growing bigger---BIGGER!
"Hey, they've hit that Bird-Dog!"
Oscar Scar followed the pointing arm to see against the pale sun-glared sky the silhouette of the spinning plane---trailing a corckscrew of smoke down, down, down.
They had been following the group of Charlies flushed from the cluster of houses just behind, seen the aircraft spiral up, drive, and climb again, followed by a crackle of gunfire in which a machine gun bopped out regular bursts.
"Is that wog gunner on the mark, or what?"
Hart watched the ground surging up---now---throttle, stick and rudder---power---straighten up, pull out----below tree tops---between these two---smoke and flames---field ahead, stick back, back, back----throttle closed---switch everything off---grass, water---SPLASH! into the mud---everything gone behind a brown cascade of water and mud---stopped---door---M16 off rack---still flames---out out! Thank God into the open---over to that paddie bund. Chest heaving, Hart lays half in, half out of the water, keeping low among the grass stalks. Who was around, VC or friendlies? Must move, the VC might get here first; the smoke is a good marker; roar into the blue---here comes Grit, propeller disc shimmering, rolling as he flashes over---wave, Grit Two....Three....Four arcing back up. Watch the ground, you assholes! Figures running along the tree line; stay low, M16 cocked; where's that blood coming from? Good God, hit in the head and arm---anywhere else? Gotta wait. Here they come, more cautiously, spread out. That guy's tall for a slope, and that one----they're British! God save the Queen!
"Hey, you chaps, here! Hey!"
"Oscar, over here----Hallo, guv'nuh. You all right?"
And Hart slumped over onto his back, infuriated with the men who were supposed to be his country's allies in war.
"Am I all right? Jesus! I've just been shot down, blood running all over me and he's got the balls to ask me if I'm all right! I just don't get that English sense of humor," as his eyes followed the other green figures moving past the burning Cessna to secure the paddie. Above, four Grits snarled in a circle, waiting.
"Hey, Brit, you got a radio near? I got a target for 'em---the little fucker who put me here," as Raw came up with his radio operator trailing behind.366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcPVXLzD32U
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Quang Thi Thom stood on the canal's edge and beckoned her mother and sister to help her with a palm-down motion of the Asian. Anxiously she peered at the sky visible through the trees lining the canal. For the past three days they had tried to get to market. Each time an airplane had appeared and either attacked or called others, circling while they paddled along, until the other screaming birds arrived and dived. Quickly, they climbed into the canoe, and the three set off paddling rapidly and keeping a keen eye on the sky.
Over 1 mile later, Thom's sister suddenly started, paddle splashing and pointed eastward, "Hai! Helicopters! Look, look!"
The others' eyes flicked around, and there were the two aggressive bumblebees, soundless yet speeding nose-down along the intersecting canal.
"Quick, into the bank!" The three paddles flashed and the boat shot under the shade of the trees. The women grabbed onto the grass stalks, sitting motionless in the darker area, holding their breath, talking in whispers as though the distant monsters could hear them. The dark shapes followed the other canal, and as they passed the intersection, all three women released a collective sigh of relief. Then the dark death-bees began to circle a spot on the far canal; one climbed a little, turned and dived. To the ears of Thom and the other two, the machine guns sounded as a dull, distant moan; rockets flashed momentarily and slid down their trail of smoke, water spouts leapt above the trees. The circling continued while the three women held on, motionless, staring at the little angry shape; then the two departed, following the tree lines.
The three women stayed in the shadows for several minutes, then slowly paddled along, heads turning continuously, eyes staring at the sky, small black-clad mice scuttling under the threat of the merciless, impersonal hawk.
As the canoe came up to the canal intersection, Thom peered along to the right, in the direction the helicopters had been firing.
"Mother! Tuyet! Look! Pointing to the almost awash canoe drifting towards them under the shadows, splintered areas showing lighter against the dark wood, collapsed bundles of rags inside, an arm dangling from one huddled black cotton pile, dragging in the water and trailing a black rope---no, an eel feasting on the torn flesh!
The three women sat petrified as the sinking canoe drifted downstream past their stern, trailing pink ribbons into the murky canal water where blood trickled out of the bullet holes.
"Who are they?" whispered Tuyet.
"I did not see any faces. Perhaps it was the people from Na Xam. They live that way."
Thom turned to her mother. "Should we go on?"
Old Kha stared into the sky. "They might come back."
"But we must get food."
"Yes, yes. If we are careful. We shall go on."
Paddling with the quiet strength of desperation, the three continued on their way. Suddenly they heard a muttering roar behind and turned to see silhouetted against the light down the avenue of trees one of the dreaded bees. The three women began a terrified paddling, trying to outrun a 100-mile-an-hour Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Specialist 4 Dave Hoagland grinned behind his microphone and dark green visor and spoke to the pilots. "Looks like more up front, Lieutenant. They sure as hell started paddling faster when they saw us."
"Okay, Hoagland, your show now."
The Huey climbed slightly, moving to one side and paralleling the trees, the second gunship falling behind.
Leaflets, advising people to stay home for the next few days, had been dropped when the operation began, so anyone moving could be assumed to be Vietcong. Whereas an infantryman can take time to search a house, or halt travelers and question them, a helicopter is not the best of machines to ask a peasant his destination. And as a distressed fish attracts sharks by its thrashings, if the peasants show signs of alarm, the pilot assumes they are likely enemy.
The three women stared in terror at the horrible beast thrumming swiftly up behind them.
"Quickly! We must get out of the canoe!"
They reached the bank and leaped for the top as Hoagland began firing---waterspouts sparkled up, splinters flew, Tuyet screamed as her conical straw hat was plucked away by a snapping devil cracking past her ear, the roaring engines and yammering machine gun overwhelmed their brains as the helicopter slowed and pivoted overhead, hunter-hawk, eyes behind green visors peering down for mice-people-ray.
"Where'd they go?" asked Hoagland, as they circled tightly over the canoe.
"Let's see what the rotor blast'll do,," as the pilot descended using the whirlwind to buffet the trees, bushes and grass. Nothing moved.
Hoagland riddled the drifting canoe, taking pleasure from his accuracy as the tracers streaked down into the writhing, leaping foam, and the shattered canoe drifted apart.
"C'mon, no canoe, no carrying supplies. Let's split."
The Hueys thrummed off along the canal.
"Hoagland, you can add a canoe to your score."
"Holy shit, Lieutenant, I ain't gonna paint no goddamn canoe on this bird. We're here to zap Cong, goddamnit!"
The eight young men sped across the countryside in their twin flying machines, looking for enemy to zap. Only VC show signs of guilt when the government and its allies appear; so anyone running is Vietcong.
Thom, Tuyet, and Kha crept out of the holes dug along the canal bank, eyes large with fright. "We must go back. We will be killed."
Silently the three turned and began trotting the two and a half miles home, keeping a careful eye on the sky.
For the next two days the whole population of the hamlet huddled at home, never moving far from their homes and shelters. NLF armed units moved past but had no food to spare. Then Tuyet saw the silhouettes of foreigners down the far reaches of the canal bank.
"Quick! Hide! The men remaining scuttled into their hiding places in canal banks, in paddies, sugarcane fields or elsewhere. The women and children hid in the prepared shelters. Separate hiding places were necessary as the government took men to be soldiers, the tax collector accompanied soldiers and so did the landlord's man; and maybe these foreigners were like the French, who forced men to be carriers of loot and ammunition, taking them far from home and into battles, or maybe they were like the North African troops who sodomized everybody.
Thom, Tuyet and Kha crowded into the shelter with the five children. They shut the shelter and sat quietly in the dark, gaining comfort by holding hands. Time passed in the pitched black. Then foreign voices were heard. The hands squeezed tighter in the dark and fear made the silence and blackness into a physical weight pressing on each pounding chest.
The cover was suddenly whipped away and light streamed in. Nothing happened; then an Occidental cautiously peered in and pulled his face away.
A foreign voice was then herd, "Get Ted in here, there's a whole crowd of 'em in here."
"Buncha women an' kids in there. Searched the place, nothin' so far.
"Okay. Hey in there! Come on out. We're not gonna do ya for. We do not hurt women and children. Come on, blast you!"
"We are afraid."
To himself and the two infantrymen present, Fleming muttered, "Jesus! If something happens you know what to do." Shrugging out of his webbing and laying down his weapon, he knelt before the shelter.
"Look, I have no gun. I will come in and talk to you," and in English, "a man must be bonkers."
Crawling into the shelter with a torch, feet poking out into the house, he shone the light about and counted the inmates, noting the fear in the eyes of the women and the curiosity of the children. After some minutes coaxing, they were persuaded to come out, and crawled blinking into the kitchen.
As always the kids did most to break the ice and bridge the gap. The sight of the biscuits offered to the kids prompted Tuyet to start the long story of their isolation from the market. Halfway through the long recital, a droning announced the arrival of a "Bird-Dog." The obvious fright with which they all looked up and followed its passage convinced Fleming.
During the next two hours he observed similar signs in other people in the hamlet and pointed it out to Raw.
Raw watched their reactions to several passing aircraft then turned to one of his men. "Hop along to the BHQ and see if the FAC is busy," referring to the forward air controller, "and ask him to come over here. I want to show him something."
"Hey, that's really interesting," observed the USAF captain, watching the nervous clustering inside doorways as the Huey throbbed over and settled near BHQ. "These folks are really scared."
"We've been told your aircraft shoot at anything that moves."
"Well, hell, they were all told to stay in their homes."
"This is a different society. They can't just phone the deliveries, you know. What's the big idea, anyway?"
"The 'big idea' is to halt unnecessary movement in the area and make our jobs easier. God knows, we don't want to hurt innocent people. If they're not Cong, they've got nothing to worry about."
"Have you ever thought how terrifying it might be to a peasant to be buzzed by a chopper? He gets scared and runs. He runs and he's a Charlie. This is the effect your air power has on people----look at them!"
"Now, how do you know they're not Cong?"
"I don't. How do the pilots know they are?"
"Look, Ted, we're not gettin' anywhere. Our job is to support the ground forces. Interdiction is one part of that help. And ground fire's a big problem here. You know how many birds are downed in the south by small-arms fire alone?"
"No, I don't, but I'm sure it's considerable."
"Christ, they're told. What are we supposed to do? Let Charlie run free?"
When the FAC had gone, Fleming stood up from where he'd been sitting listening to the conversation, shook his head and said, "Well, there are two sides to it, sir, but how will these people believe the government, which is over the horizon and out of sight, is their friend, when all the planes are government?"366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZppVGqaiyK
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Battalion Commander Bo Gia and Political Officer Tram Lan knelt in the shade of a lantana clump and watched the buzzing gunships beating along the canals to the west.
"Comrade," said Bo Gia, "I think we should stay here till dark, then move to the Three Dragons rendezvous. Puppet and foreign troops are on all sides," indicating the map case opened on the ground before them, "and 600 men moving are certain to be seen."
Two members of the reconnaissance platoon crouched under the next clump and listened carefully to the capitalist model Sony radios they carried. From those radios squawked the voices of the foreigners; the two English speakers frowned in concentration as they listened to the transmissions of their enemies and tried to locate the positions referred to on their own maps. One started up and crawled through the grass to the 2 commanders.
"Comrade, an American unit traveling in APCs reports itself here," pointing to a canal line tot the northeast. He crawled back to his Sony.
The two stared at the map. Bo Gia for the first time felt worry stir in his stomach. "They might come right upon us," he muttered, tracing the reported locations and extending the line across the map: it went through their present position.
Puppet marines to the north and northwest; US troops to the northeast, east, and south. Aircraft constantly flying along the canals to the west, as well as above the enemy troops. Bo Gia decided on a course of action.
"Comrade, we shall bury the heavy weapons here, one platoon will move to the northeast and create a diversion while the reconnaissance platoon finds a way out to the southwest, west, and southeast. Rendezvous is the place of Three Dragons, referring to the junction of the big creeks. Tram Lan nodded.
The diversionary platoon trotted off, camouflage of branches and leafy vines nodding with the movement. Bo Gia trotted over to where the recoilless rifles, mortars, and machine guns were being tightly wrapped in plastic and buried in the mud, hidden in shallow trenches under bushes and covered over with dirt and leaves, or sunk in the canals. The highly trained and highly motivated reconnaissance platoon had already departed.
Suddenly, the rolling roar of firing broke out to the north. The hovering mechanical insects darted towards the spot; artillery shells threw fountains of mud skywards with the thud of slamming doors. The HQ group knelt, watching the diversion. Listening to the chatter coming from their modified Sonys, the two reconnaissance men were nodding and smiling as the diversion tactic succeeded. Tram Lan looked in the direction of the reconnaissance platoon's pathfinding to see a gunship, thrumming nose down in a straight line towards the artillery fire, suddenly break into a circling pattern, its attendant mate following, but always on the extremity of the circle.
"What are they looking at?" But all of them knew what the helicopters were sniffing out. The Sony listeners looked up and nodded. The gunships had seen men below where they were circling.
Tram Lan spoke up, "All they know is that there are men there," pointing to the artillery, "and there," pointing to the circling hunters. "We can stay hidden here and do nothing to call attention to ourselves."
Bo Gia nodded and sent for the company commanders. Quickly, he gave his orders. The five companies dispersed around the two adjoining paddies, not on the edges but in the field itself. Bo Gia estimated that it would be 2 hours till dusk. Then after dark the platoons and companies would begin their creeping, crawling, wriggling, noiseless way out of the area.
Now the gunships were machine-gunning the targets they saw: a "Bird-Dog" flitted over and started dipping and sniffing along the tree lines. Under the droning and thrumming of the plane engines, and the ripping calico sound of the machine guns, came the deeper roaring of ground vehicle engines. Suddenly the first M113 roared and swung itself up onto the bund, its wet flanks dripping and gleaming golden in the sun, helmeted heads turning, and rifles and machine guns pointing across the fields. It turned and grumbled along the bund. Peering out through the frieze of grass, Bo Gia saw, one of the other M113s arrive on the edge of the paddies. Scattered firing broke out as an investigatory tracer flicked into the distant trees. No reply; shooting halted.
The first muddy monsters dipped their noses over the edge of the bund and slid down into the flooded paddy, wallowing their way across. Bo Gia seized his own hollow reed, preparing to submerge and breathe through it when the huge threshing beasts came near him; deep breath, reed in mouth, like back into the blindness, the roaring transmitted through the water to every inch of his body. He felt the pressure in his ears as one roaring engine went by; soon they will be gone, sweeping on, and the battalion can go on to Three Dragons.
But the noise goes on. What?! Very carefully, Bo Gia raises his head. The riders on the M113s are staring down into the water, pointing, one raises his rifle and fires down, the other vehicles are not going away but turning for another trip across. Men pointing into the fields. They have found some of the hiding battalion. The firing began as the Americans systematically ploughed the fields with bullets, rockets, mortars, and artillery; then drove to and fro across the fields.
Their weapons useless due to mud and water, or the plastic wrapping, the battalion endured the slaughter, buffeted by water pressure, pierced by shot and shell, washed to the surface by the turbulence made by the wake of the rampaging M113s.
As night fell, the flares popped constantly over the scene; but the wavering lights created grotesque shadows from many different angles, and the exhausted survivors started slowly, carefully creeping out through the little gaps in the ring of surrounding enemy who persisted in talking, coughing, smoking, eating with rattle of cans, and fiddling with weapons.
As the sun flared over the eastern trees, Bo Gia and Tram Lan sat under a tree receiving reports from the companies as survivors crept in. The surviving Sony squawked, and the tired listeners passed the information to the command group. Muddy faces stared to the south where the tiny dots of circling aircraft glinted in the dawn sun. Soon the haze would make them invisible, but for the moment, in the freshness of awn, the eye could cover the 9 miles to the scene of the slaughter.
At midday, the administration officer had reported 340 comrades arrived at the RV, 260 were missing.
"Comrade," said Tram Lan, "assemble the battalion and I will speak to them," pointing to the clump of bamboos in the rear.
Back at the scene of the slaughter, for a battle it was not, the young paratrooper major from brigade intelligence, S2, walked along the bund to the commander's Huey, which had set down on a higher drier piece of ground.
Sitting casually on a small field table, with his trademark---the big bowie knife---prominent on his hip, the brigadier general conferred with COs of the infantry units and APCs. The general, tall and lean in the paratrooper mold, took his cigar out of the corner of his mouth and regarded the waiting S2 through cold green eyes.
"Ho, theah, S2, what yo'all got theah?"
The S2 suppressed a desire to reply in like manner. "Wha Gen'ril, yo wooden b'leafe thuh whole rafta dock-u-ments we'uns got from these heha lil'oh'Cong, suh. No! sirree Bob!"
Instead he "popped" to attention and snapped off a springy airborne salute. "Sir, two full sandbags and these satchels," pointing to the pile at his feet, "all identifying individuals, companies, and headquarters elements of 808 Main Force Battalion. We have roll books, certificates, letters, and other documents of men in all 5 companies. Some heavy weapons were found," snappily pointing "over by the trees. I'd say we got the whole battalion surrounded here. Body count thus far: 210 KIA, plus 11 wounded here, and another 8 KIA by body count in the preliminary contacts north and south. Today: 218 KIA, 11 WIA captured, plus 187 individual and crew-served weapons. What's in the mud yet, we don't know. Reckon we won't hear of the 808th for some time, General."
"Uh, huh. Good, good." Turning to the quiet, grinning infantry and APC officers, "Very good. Let mah people have thuh names of deservin' ind'v'du-als foh deck-or-ashuns. Okay now. Ah'm goin' back to mah CP. Make shore thuh press people do not get uh good coverage of all this heah."
Casual wave from cap brim to acknowledge the salutes, cigar flung into the paddy, and the general climbed into his Huey.
Bo Gia stood to one side, watching the quietly assembling companies. His thoughts flitted back over the years----to his father, a very minor clerk but able to give his son five years of elementary education, which sparked a burning need to read so that he devoured every written thing in sight. With the reading, the questioning, "Why were the Vietnamese people partitioned and ruled by the French?" The first tentative moves into political discussion with friends. The fear of the French Surete. The growing hatred of the French and those Vietnamese who embraced everything foreign and rejected their own heritage. Then the Japanese came: the French masters were themselves subordinate to Asians! The puerile, badly planned, catastrophic French attempt to overthrow the Japanese in March 1945. The quiet Japanese struck first and soundly trounced the French, then gave independence to Vietnam. The heady days in power till the French and British arrived, post-Hiroshima, and the struggle since. The dithering, prattling socialists and democrats of every shade, so easy to outmaneuver and so simple to denounce the French, who thus removed local opponents of the Viet Minh until only the men of the revered Ho were left.
When the French left, Bo Gia went to the north; in 1960 he returned to the south to help with the revolution. Now, with no family of his own, his parents dead, and uncaring for the fate of his brothers, Bo Gia devoted every waking hour to the revolution. A party member since 1953, he had dedicated his life to the party. He never thought of his "old age," an in fact, did not expect such a period in his life.
Most of the battalion had washed their clothes, all had cleaned their weapons, and wounds had been bandaged. He caught the eye of several party comrades who were primed for their part in the coming address.
He stood, hand on satchel slung over his shoulder, looking around in the shady, pleasant place: so cool and green, so quiet---just the faint humming of a distant helicopter---and thought for a moment of other groups of revolutionaries who had gone into the wilds---Mao Tse Tung in the caves of Yennan, Ho and Giap in the mountains of the north---and his face firmed with resolution. The watchers noted the change to his features and muttered conversation ceased as he stepped forward.
"Comrades," looking around at the attentive eyes, "Comrades of the National Liberation Front. We have lost many comrades who have given their lives for the revolution: 260 brave soldiers have sacrificed their lives for the front, the people, and the country. Comrades, why did they die and for what did they die?" He held up one hand, palm down, encompassing the whole group in one wave, intense, penetrating eyes sweeping the faces.
"They died for unification! Our country! Freedom! Our people! They were soldiers to struggle for independence!"
Member Ly, "Our Country!"
And others, on cue: "Freedom! Our people! Independence!"
Bo Giap was intelligent enough to play on the Vietnamese xenophobia. He held up both hands and silence returned to the cool green meeting place at Three Dragons.
"Comrades, our departed heroes died to lift the yoke of the Saigon regime, to remove the burden of the greedy landlord, to destroy the police repressive measures, to allow our country to guide its own progress. They died for the children, youth, housewives, students, artists, and writers, workers, and all the people of our Vietnam!"
In softer tones, "But for what do the puppet troops and the Americans and their lackeys die? They say 'democracy,' but everyone knows that the Saigon regime does not represent the real people---the workers. The puppet troops die for the greedy, immoral generals fighting each other in Saigon. They die for the religious bigots and the landlords and money lenders! And the Americans! This is not their country! They fight for the 'American way of life' here, for their culture, and what is it?----the bars, the black market, the dissolution of youth, the destruction of morals; they turn our women and girls into prostitutes. That is all they want in our Vietnam---drinks and sex. That is what they die for---filth, corruption, and the yoke on our peoples' necks!"
Softer, intense tones. "But our men and women give their lives for the good of the nation. Four our nation's future, development, and progress. Comrades, they," pointing to the south, finger stabbing the air, eyes blazing, jaw rigid, "they thing we are defeated! Are we?"
Party members bounding up, "No! Never! No! No! No!" The remainder caught on the rising tide---arms and weapons waving over their heads.366Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGDPOKKnWie
"Very well! Tonight we attack the puppet troops at Ðong Ranh!"
"Attack! Forward! On! On! Assault! Down with the Saigon regime! Dong Ranh! Forward!"
Shouting now, "Comrades! Quiet! Comrade Tram Lan will now explain our plan. Battalion 808 is a 'Determined to Fight, Determined to Win' unit. Tonight! Assault to victory!"
24 hours later, the brigade S2 puzzled over reports by ARVN that 808 Main Force Battalion had overrun the Dong Ranh post, killing 47 government soldiers, ambushing the relief column, and departing, for the loss of two bodies left behind.
"How the....? Hey, Topper," to the top sergeant, "how can the goddamn 808th do this? Jesus, we still have bags of documents positively identifying the mothers 20 miles away, here, where we got 'em. They definitely lost over 200 KIV, yet next night, hit a GVN outpost. Goddamnit! The general and the press think the 808th was destroyed 2 days ago. Keep this quiet, or you an' me'll be checking movements of penguins down in the goddamn Falklands."
"Hmmm, okay, sir."
ns 15.158.61.54da2
