Death in the Jungle (17 page)

The ambush site was six hundred meters southeast, where we’d set up on the Rach Bau Bong at a point where another smaller tributary joined it, creating a Y of waterways. But to get there, a jungle of nipa palm and nearly impenetrable mangrove had to be conquered.

As usual, the going was extremely difficult. Twisted roots and tightly growing clusters of vegetation impeded my progress. Every step was deep into soggy, sucking mud. Hundreds of mosquitos congregated before my eyes in the early morning daylight. A spider the size of a hardball hung on a web to my right. Biting ants crawled all over a bush to my left. In a word, the place was oppressive, but I’d been trained to handle it.

I slowly snaked my way through the brush and mud, and the nine men behind me followed my path in single file. I looked back once at the green-painted faces of
Mr. Meston and Brown. Looking forward again, I remembered the day during Hell Week in the mud flats south of Coronado, when Teddy Roosevelt IV, John Odusch, Bud Burgess, Muck McCollum, some others, and I had sat in a line on each other’s laps with interlocked legs and arms, moving as one force in a backward motion through the mud. That had been the caterpillar race in which we either worked together as a team or we did not budge. This morning, I felt like a part of that caterpillar again.

During the next two hours, the temperature seemed to creep upward with every ten steps that I crept forward. The long johns I was wearing did a good job of decreasing mosquito bites, but they also did a good job of burning me up. By the time I found a small tributary we were to cross, I was wetter than it.

It being low tide, the stream bed was almost dry, but stodgy with black mud. I held up at the edge, where human tracks were abundant. I gave Mr. Meston the hand signal for “danger point.” Mr. Meston directed Moses and Flynn to move forward to the creek bank. Moses set up on the left flank with his M-79 40mm grenade launcher while Flynn set up on right flank with his M-60 7.62mm machine gun. The rest of the men formed a skirmish line behind me in the brush.

When Mr. Meston signaled that my teammates were ready, I sat down on the edge of the steep, slick bank and slid on my fanny into the muddy creek bottom. My feet buried themselves in the muck. Without hesitation, I pulled my right foot out along with a shoebox-size hunk of clinging mud, and I stepped ahead and back into the morass. Then I lifted my trailing left foot, again dragging a clump of gunk.

After nine or ten difficult steps, I made it to the opposite bank. The bank was five feet high, almost straight up, and slicker than grease on linoleum. I
reached up as far as I could and shoved the barrel of Sweet Lips into the lower branches of a bush. Then I grasped a branch in both hands, jerked my right foot out of the mud, and attempted to swing my leg up on the bank. There was so much mud weighing down my foot that I couldn’t quite perform the feat. After three futile attempts, I simply used my arms and pulled my body upward through the mud. By the time I dragged myself out of the creek bottom, I was a smelly, shiny black mess from chin to toe. I looked thrice as bad as I used to look when, as a five-year-old, I had thought stuff like this was fun.

I slid Sweet Lips back into my slimy hands, then executed a short recon up and down the creek bank. Again, I found numerous human tracks but nothing else to concern me. I secured a position beside a nipa palm tree and signaled Mr. Meston to send over the AW (automatic weapons) man and grenadier. This was a dangerous time for us. With SEALs fighting the mud in a creek bottom, we were tactically very vulnerable.

Katsma, carrying several grenades and an M-60 machine gun with five hundred rounds of 7.62mm linked ammo belted around him, was the first to come. He crossed the muddy bottom with surprising agility considering the weight he was lugging and the awful conditions. However, when he emerged from the hole, he looked just as sloppy as I.

McCollum, the grenadier, with the M-79 grenade launcher and eighty rounds of 40mm HE, was next. He had more trouble, but made it. As he crawled atop the bank, toting gobs of mud on every limb, he looked and smelled much worse than Katsma or me. The nickname Muck certainly fit McCollum at that moment in his hitch.

Mr. Meston crossed next, with Doc Brown behind
him. Both carried M-16 rifles and various grenades and flares. Brown also packed the PRC-25 radio.

As Mr. Meston climbed up the bank successfully, Brown found himself floundering in the middle of the creek bed. He fought to free his right leg, which was sunk over the knee in the black mud. Failing in the attempt, he worked on his left leg while his right went even deeper. Again, his efforts were futile and he ended up falling and wallowing in the mud like an unpracticed hog.

All of us on both sides of the creek suppressed laughter, but lots of white teeth were showing through big grins. The only one not in the mood to laugh was Mr. Meston, who stripped his gear and slid down the bank and back into the stinking creek bottom. He battled his way to Brown, who was now up to his crotch in muck. Mr. Meston grabbed Brown’s M-16, then grabbed Brown’s hand and pulled until he freed him from the hold. By the time the two men climbed out of the bed, they were the dirtiest and ugliest men in the jungle.

As the muck in the creek bottom became progressively deeper and more unmanageable, Mr. Schrader’s group struggled to make it safely across. When they finally did, Mr. Meston motioned for me to take the point and get us the hell out of there. I was glad to put a little more distance between me and the malodorous lieutenant and the corpsman.

I patrolled through relatively dry ground and thick, nasty brush for thirty minutes until I reached a medium tributary. This channel had water in it. Checking the bank, I saw VC footprints all over the place.

Once again, Mr. Meston signaled me to recon the area. I followed the stream to the southwest, and after fifty meters, I discovered the Y of waterways where we were to set up our ambush. Our intelligence sources had informed us that a large VC hospital complex was located
approximately six to nine hundred meters southwest of that Y.

Returning to the others, I used hand signals to tell Mr. Meston what I’d found. Strict noise discipline was a must in an area of heavy enemy activity, prohibiting voice communication. Mr. Meston alerted the others, and the ten of us cautiously moved to the ambush site.

At 0945 hours, Mr. Schrader and his four men set up along the riverbank for the first twelve-hour watch. Mr. Meston’s group positioned itself back in the brush as the rear security element. For me, that meant a little relaxation from the stress of functioning as point man on patrol.

I deployed three of the four claymore mines I’d been carrying, one on each flank and one in the jungle to our rear, then dropped my own rear onto some twisted mangrove prop roots that literally made for a half-ass seat. Resting Sweet Lips on my lap, I took a drink from one of my canteens and opened a C rats can of ham and eggs, one of the finer dishes issued to us swamp warriors. At least there was no big gob of grease in the ham and eggs entrée as there was in ham and lima beans.

As I ate, I contemplated a statement made by Mao Tse-tung, who said, “Political power comes out of the barrel of a gun.” I glanced at Sweet Lips and confirmed that the end of her barrel jammed between Mao’s legs would drain all the power, political or otherwise, out of his loins and would easily transfer it to the gun bearer, which I’d have loved to be me. And after the sign-over, believe me, I’d have squeezed the trigger and fragmented the president’s precious jewels.

I was distracted from these elevated thoughts by two black flies, which were flying tight circles around me. I tried to keep up with them with my eyes, and I did well until three or four more joined the merrymaking. I realized
that the flies had been attracted by my brand new splash-on muddy cologne.

After a while, I ignored the little disease vectors, even though they were landing all over me. The fact that some were probably carrying malaria was an uncomfortable thought, but I took my weekly malaria pills faithfully, anyway. I closed my eyes and allowed my body to relax. It felt so good that I let my mind go blank and I fell asleep.

Suddenly awaking at 1155 hours, I shook the fuzziness out of my head, somehow gathering that I needed to regain my alertness. Something had tickled one of my senses. I glanced around my immediate vicinity. Seeing nothing besides the ordinary muck and yuck, I stopped moving my head, slowed my breathing and pricked up my ears.

In the next twenty seconds, I realized many things. The temperature had risen considerably, the mud all over my clothing had dried up, most of the flies were gone, the men around me were dozing. Then my ears told me what I needed to know. Human voices were coming from far away.

I lifted Sweet Lips from my lap and flicked off the safety. I hesitated and listened again. The voices were suddenly closer, emanating from upstream. I rose to my feet and started forward toward the ambush site. Peering through the dense foliage, I tried to spot one of the camouflaged SEALs waiting in the brush along the bank. Before I saw one, a sampan floated by on the water. I barely saw it between the nipa palm branches and leaves and the bushes. I only got a split-second look. Just as abruptly as it had appeared, the sampan vanished from my line of sight.

I heard a noise behind me and looked back to see Mr. Meston approaching. I motioned that I’d seen a sampan,
and he got close and put his mouth right next to my right ear.

“See Mr. Schrader and ask why he didn’t fire!” Mr. Meston commanded.

I carefully advanced toward the riverbank to the place where the center of the killing zone of the ambush site should be. Mr. Schrader, who had been watching my convergence, materialized from behind a bush. I snuck beside him and gave him a “well, what happened?” shrug.

He whispered, “Old woman and two boys. Waiting for a better target.”

I nodded my head and slipped quietly back to Mr. Meston, who was waiting where I had left him. Mr. Meston told me to go ahead and whisper to him, so I quietly passed along Mr. Schrader’s message. Mr. Meston whispered to me to go back and tell him that if another boat came by, he should stand up and holler
“Lai dai
(Come here!)” and try to capture the occupants.

Again I made my way to Mr. Schrader and gave him Mr. Meston’s orders. He acknowledged the information with a nod, and I reversed to return to the rear. I went only a few steps before I heard more voices up the river, so I turned and joined Mr. Schrader and his men overlooking the waterway.

Several seconds crawled by. A lung fish splashed downriver. A widgeon flew toward us from out of the south. Things were existing in their natural order. I wished it were so easy.

Then a sampan came into view. Two men, dressed in the green uniforms of the NVA, were standing up in the boat, one at each end, steering the craft along with the current. Two women were seated, both holding packages or bundles of some kind. I couldn’t believe they were moving through a free-fire zone in broad daylight.

As they drew alongside us just ten meters out, Mr. Schrader jumped up, compromising himself, and yelled,
“Lai dai, Lai dai!”

My eyes darted back and forth between the two NVA soldiers, whose mouths had dropped open in shock at the surprising sight of an enemy who had the drop on them in the middle of their own swamp.

“Lai dai!”
Mr. Schrader screamed again, but the four in the boat continued to stare as they gradually drifted away.
“Lai dai
, dammit!” Mr. Schrader hollered after them in frustration. “I told you to get the hell over here!”

Suddenly the two men in the sampan dove overboard and disappeared under the surface of the water. Instantly, my teammates and I opened fire. Bullets riddled the stream like a hard-driving hailstorm.

In the midst of the hellacious gunfire, one of the women dropped her bundle into the sampan and threw herself into the stream. The other woman stayed seated and leaned over as if to protect her package. In between heavy bursts of gunfire, my ears recorded a baby’s bawl. My hair stood on end as I realized the contents of at least one of the two bundles.

“Don’t shoot the boat!” I yelled for all I was worth. As I did, one of the gooks stuck his head up for air. I turned Sweet Lips on him and pulled the trigger. Water sprayed in front of his face as I pumped in another round and fired again. More water droplets exploded around his head, which sank underwater.

I glanced at the woman in the sampan. She was still huddled over her parcel. The boat was a lame duck, seemingly drifting in slow motion, with bullets tearing up the water behind it.

“Don’t shoot the boat!” I shouted, wishing I could play God to reach out and pluck the woman and the baby, or babies, to safety. I yelled again, and the woman
in the sampan turned her head and stole a look back toward me. I was sure she couldn’t pick me out, but I could see even her fearful eyes. A second later, she hunched over and hid her face in the bundle on her lap.

As weapons continued to pound on both sides of me, Mr. Meston charged up from the rear and started firing his M-16 across and into the fifty-meter-wide stream. One of BT2 Moses’s 40mm HE grenades exploded on the opposite bank, followed by a second loud explosion. M-60 machine gun noise banged the hell out of my eardrums. I added to the ruckus as I blasted the water where I had last seen the enemy’s head.

Moments later, as the assault began to diminish, another head popped up for air near the opposite shore. Without shilly-shally, all SEAL team weapons went full bore. A fusillade of bullets drove the head back down.

Not wanting to lose the sampan, Mr. Meston yelled at me to go get it. I laid Sweet Lips in a bush and grabbed the big pair of duck fins. Quickly, I pulled them on over my coral booties and slid my body off the bank and into the stream. The water was immediately refreshing as I breaststroked toward the boat. Maybe I could play God, after all. I heard a baby crying, and I was determined to rescue it.

Heavy gunfire suddenly erupted behind me. I looked ahead across the water and saw the two male gooks trying to claw their way up the riverbank to escape into the jungle. But the bank was a nightmare, steep and slick with mud. The men slipped and slid as bullets splattered all around them. Pieces of flesh were torn from their bodies, yet they continued to scramble upward. Miraculously, after ten seconds more of all hell breaking loose, the two made it up the slippery bank and fell into the thick brush, but they left trails of blood and entrails behind them. I would have bet a year’s pay that neither of them would ever see another paycheck. I knew dead
men when I saw them, even if they were last seen still crawling.