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2:38 p.m. - 2002-01-21
Just another war story

First, just a little housekeeping. I need to park a war story here. It's one I wrote in march of 2000.

All the facts aren't exactly right. I found out more when I attended a reunion of 101st vietnam veterans in 2001. The village wasn't An Lo. It was a small vilage near Quang Tri. Other than that, I think the facts are mostly right. The feelings are right for sure.

030400

There are some big holes in my memory. Things I can remember everything before and everything after. But, in between, it�s as if aliens abducted me. The attack of 2/4/68 is one of those things. I know it happened. I remember the LPs coming in, and the mortar attack. I can only guess at the events after that. I know it happened though, because last year I obtained a copy of our Battalion logs and the attack is mentioned there. According to the log, our company was �credited� (gotta love that word) with 250 confirmed kills of North Vietnamese Army troops. The battle went on until 0300 the next morning before the NVA broke contact and withdrew.

But even though my mind won�t remember, my body remembers everything. It remembers an electric fear� so intense; it feels like being shocked. And the feeling of time slowing down, so you can�t move fast enough. Heart pounding like it�s going to explode. The blood roaring in your ears until the other sounds are all but wiped out. Today, my therapist would call that a panic attack, but I don�t care for the word and refuse to apply it to myself. It�s panic under wraps. Controlled panic. I think it must be something most people never experience.

So whatever happened that night was bad. My guess is that it was what I had feared in other firefights coming true. I think we must have come very close to being overrun that night. Outnumbered and with limited ammunition.

My memory sneaks back to me on the following morning. It�s daylight. There are a couple of mules there, the little flatbed four wheel drive platforms they used then. We were loading equipment onto the mules. Packs, canteens, guns. I remember getting a rifle from one of the mules. I couldn�t find my own. I still don�t know where mine went. I got one of the new-style bladder canteens too. It was a lot lighter than my old one and it held more water. The stuff we were loading onto the mules was what had been left behind when the dead and wounded soldiers were flown out of there.

Before long, we were back on the trail. I didn�t know it at the time, be we were engaged in a recon in force. That means we were out looking for the NVA forces we had fought the previous night. My platoon Sergeant, a stocky red-head by the name of Hicks assigned me to walk left flank for our unit. I�d been there before. I think he liked me there. While the rest of the platoon, even the point man, would be walking along a trail or road, the flank men had to scramble through the brush, trying to keep up with the group and acting as a sort of sideways point man. I had been on left flank when I killed my first Viet cong face to face.

So, off we went through the jungle towards a village named An Lo. The trees were tall and the jungle floor was cool and quiet. The trail we followed was little more than a footpath. I was used to sweating as I labored to squirm my way with a fifty-pound pack through heavy undergrowth, but this was different. Either it was easy going or I was becoming an expert. In a few places, I could even catch a glimpse of the cloudy sky through the tops of the trees.

It seemed a short distance, maybe two miles, before we came out of the trees to a river that flowed across our path. On the other side of the river were rich green rice paddies, and a village beyond. I didn�t know the name of it at the time, but it was An Lo. Off to our left was a two-lane road, which went across the river on a steel bridge. On the far side of the bridge was a round concrete structure that looked like an old French pillbox bunker, long since abandoned.

In another universe, our platoon might have crossed the river using that bridge, but we got the order to wade the river. Its brown, muddy water was slow moving and only came about chest-high, but I hated getting in it. Getting wet wasn�t so bad, but I didn�t like leeches. On the other bank, there was a small embankment, about three feet high. We spread out along that embankment and got a short break while everybody got across and got organized again. I was the furthest person to the left along the embankment. Craig was right there next to me and we took advantage of the halt to drop our packs and smoke. We weren�t talking a lot that day. I think we both were just too tired. But it was comforting just to sit there for a minute.

Too soon, we were told to get ready to move again. We put on our packs and climbed the embankment to start across the rice paddies. We only got a few yards though, before we heard gunfire coming from the village. I could hear the rounds snapping and buzzing as they flew by. It was heavy gunfire. Lots of it. Without waiting to be told, everyone just knew to get back to the embankment. It was the only cover between the village and us. I remember this firefight very well. Everyone was returning fire. We had two M-60 machine guns with us, and those guys got set up pretty quick. Even though the bullets were flying just over my head, I wasn�t as scared. I felt good behind the embankment, firing my rifle into the village along with the rest of the platoon.

Then, as I was getting another clip of ammunition, I noticed the mud kicking up behind me�. Behind the embankment. In the chaos and confusion, I had completely ignored my assignment to watch our left side. There was an automatic weapon inside that concrete bunker and they were firing on us too! There was no safe place to be.

I grabbed Craig and showed him what was going on. My pack was already on the ground as I told him to fire over my head into one of the peepholes in the bunker. Now I was scared silly, but all I could think of was that I didn�t dare let my sergeant down. Didn�t dare let my platoon down. I thought it was up to me to do something. With Craig targeting the peepholes, I had a chance to sprint over to the bunker. I would have been cut down otherwise, but he made those guys keep their heads down until I got right up against the rough concrete wall under one of those little windows.

Craig had stopped shooting then, for fear of hitting me, and I heard the automatic rifle open up again. I pulled the pin on a frag grenade and let the handle go. The fuse on a grenade has a five-second delay. I counted to three as slow as I dared and then just reached up and dropped it through the window. God! it was just like John Wayne! I only heard a little scuffling inside before the grenade went off, shooting a puff of dust, smoke and concrete chips out of the window.

We were still under fire as I ran back to my position, but I felt a lot safer again� and satisfied somehow. Craig was very impressed. He slapped my back and told me how cool it was. I thought so too. But only seconds later, we heard our sergeant hollering to move out. Unbelievably, we were about to assault the village. I was back to scared again. There are things you just don�t want to do, and this one of them.

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