Seven Short Stories of the Vietnam War

Chapter 2

The Jungle

Sooner than Wayne wanted, the day came for his first operation in the jungle. Everyone was issued everything that they would carry in the “field”—the jungle—including a backpack, weapon, ammo, canteens; and then each man got one case of C-rations. One case of C-rations was a three-day supply of food for one GI. There was a huge bonfire to throw the cardboard and trash from the C-rations into. In a matter of minutes everyone was transformed from trainees to combat soldiers. Wayne would still have to earn the respect of the others because he was new to the jungle, so everyone called him “Cherry.”

The weight of Wayne’s backpack was disturbing, considering that he would be climbing mountains, fording rivers and streams, and chopping his way through thick jungle while carrying it on his back. Some of the extra weight was because Wayne had been issued the M79 grenade launcher, and the rounds (bullets) weighed one half of a pound each. The good news was that the rounds exploded on contact with the target, and they had a three-meter killing radius.

Wayne was also issued five shotgun rounds and five smoke rounds. The shotgun rounds held twenty double aught buck bearings and came in very handy when the jungle was too thick to fire High Explosive rounds. The HE round, when fired, would spin from the rifling in the barrel and, after two hundred and fifty revolutions, arm itself and then explode as soon as it hit something solid. In thick jungle, the HE rounds were no good because they would only be partially armed when they hit something solid, and as the round bounced back to where it was fired from, it would often complete arming itself and explode near the guy who fired it. The smoke rounds were for signaling air power as to exactly where the enemy was and, more importantly, to exactly where the Americans were.

Once everyone was all packed up, they were briefed that this would be a search and destroy mission and that they were to shoot to kill. Then the troops formed a line, and the order was passed back to move out and to keep spread out. It was important to keep the column spread out so that one grenade, mortar round, or rocket could only kill one or two soldiers.

This was it. Wayne was now in combat with real people trying to kill him and, even more frightening, Wayne didn’t know if he could kill another human being or not. He had been trained to kill. Almost every day of his training they had been led in a chant while running, saying over and over again, “Kill, kill, kill, kill….”

They traveled cross-country for several miles until they came to a trail, and then they followed the trail deep into the jungle. Wayne had to constantly correct the distance between himself and the soldier in front of him. This would eventually become automatic, but for now it was a constant problem. Fear directed most of his attention to the jungle on his left and on his right, looking for the enemy. It wasn’t so bad if he got too close to the soldier in front of him. He, and everyone behind him, would get to stop for a few seconds until the proper space was achieved. However, when he fell behind, he would not only have to go double time to catch up, but all the guys behind him would be pissed at whoever had fallen behind because they all would have to hurry and catch up as well.

It didn’t take Wayne long to realize that even in the best-case scenario—no contact with the enemy—traveling through the jungle, or “humpin’ down the trail,” was torturous on its own. For the rest of the day, the soldiers followed the trail through streams and valleys and over some pretty serious hills. Just before sunset, they climbed one more hill and set up their night perimeter around the top. The officers, radio man, and others of importance slept in the center on top of the hill, while Wayne and the rest of the peons formed a big circle around them. Each guard position around the perimeter was manned by four soldiers for the night. A trip flare wire was stretched close to the ground across the front of each position about ten or twelve meters out, and a claymore mine was set up before the trip wire to blow up anyone who set off the trip flare wire. If the flare went off, it would light up the entire area like it was daytime. Then the guard would set off the claymore mine, and whatever—or whoever—had set off the trip flare was no longer a threat.

One soldier at each position had to be awake at all times. Wayne’s first time alone on guard duty was very frightening. He could see nothing in the black jungle because the jungle canopy blocked out even the faint starlight, and all he could do was listen intently to all the jungle noises and try to tell if any of them could have been made by something as big as a human. As exhausted as he was, he had no trouble keeping awake—fear kept his eyes open wide and staring into the darkness. Wayne was amazed at how many noises there were at night in the jungle. The jungle, at night, had an entirely new population of critters than in the daytime, all crawling and creeping about. Wayne was relieved to make it through this first night in the jungle without setting off his claymore mine because of a snake or something.

By first light everyone was up, had finished eating breakfast, and was busy breaking camp. Wayne had had a can of cling peaches and a canteen cup full of coffee and hot chocolate mixed together. Wayne didn’t like coffee, but he needed the caffeine. He didn’t want to be looking for Charlie through sleepy eyes. Everyone called the Viet Cong “Charlie” because on the field phone (backpack radio) you would say words for letters, so Viet Cong or VC was “Victor Charlie,” and that became shortened to “Charlie.”

Word was passed around that they were going into an area where a lot of enemy troop movements had been observed and for everyone to be on full alert. Nothing eventful happened by noon, when they stopped at the side of the trail to eat lunch. Wayne wanted a warm meal, so he opened a can of beans and franks and got out a heat ration bar. Before he opened the heat ration packet, another soldier at his guard position told him to use C-4 and tossed Wayne a chunk of the plastic explosive that he had just torn off of a rectangular yellow clay-like block. The last thing Wayne wanted to do was to ignore the advice of a seasoned boonie rat.

“Don’t worry, it won’t blow up,” the soldier told him, “but you have to keep moving your canteen cup around, so the flame doesn’t stay in one spot. C-4 burns with a very hot flame, and it will melt metal.” This was the first time Wayne lit a chunk of plastic explosive with a match; it made him feel very uncomfortable, even though he knew that it would only explode with another explosive, like a blasting cap. The C-4 burned very hot, but he was careful and kept moving his canteen cup over the flame. He was amazed at how fast the beans heated up.

After the lunch break they moved out again, and after an hour on the trail, a smell began to fill the air. Word was passed back that a village was ahead. The GI behind Wayne was a short-timer, and he confirmed that it was definitely the smell of a village. Wayne was surprised at how far away the village was from when they first started smelling it because it took a long time to actually reach the village. When they got to the village, the tiny community of grass huts was completely deserted, and the order was given to burn the village to the ground. Flames and smoke towered above the little village as the line of soldiers continued down the trail that had brought them. Wayne wondered what the villagers would do, way out here in the jungle, with no place to live.

Just outside the village, a few thousand meters up the trail, a shot rang out. Everyone dove off the trail and took cover in the jungle beside the trail as a barrage of shots resounded through the jungle. Word was passed back that the front of the column was pinned down by a sniper and for the M79 to move up to the front of the line and to report to the captain. That was Wayne with the M79 grenade launcher, so he made his way up the trail, keeping low. As Wayne rounded a turn in the trail, another shot rang out and Wayne heard the bullet cut through the air past him. “Get down!” a GI yelled from the side of the trail, and Wayne hit the ground hard. He low-crawled the rest of the way to the captain and reported in. The Captain pointed out a boulder on the side of a small hill where the sniper was, and Wayne estimated the distance to be two hundred and eighty meters.

The M79 had its advantages over the other weapons—the same advantage the Native Americans had over the cowboys. Wayne could shoot in a high arch, like an arrow, and drop a round right behind the boulder and take out the sniper. That’s just what he intended to do. He fired a round and carefully watched it go. It looked just like a golf ball, and Wayne tracked it so he could make a correction on the next shot. Wayne had worked as a caddy at the local golf course back home, so he had a good eye for following a golf ball and knowing where it hit so he could find it. The shot was close, but it exploded in front of the boulder. He had to put one behind the boulder to have a chance of killing the sniper. He made a correction on the next round and it exploded in just the right place, to the side of and behind the boulder. No more was heard from the sniper. The captain had them move carefully to the hill in case this was an ambush, or there was another sniper. When they reached the...