This is the first page of
Learning to Pray in a
Very Tight Spot
West of Phu Bai Valley, Republic of Vietnam, 1967. The trail ran downhill to the LZ. The fighting had started at the top and worked its way down. I had been in the last party and we waited at the LZ for the final helicopter out. Two had landed, loaded with a dozen men each and taken off. But now air support had pulled back due to weather and the closing darkness looked bad for everything.
To clear the LZ we’d blown over a tree with explosives and the upturned roots and the soil sticking to them protected me from incoming rifle fire. Though near the middle of the LZ, I was in a fairly good place. I could see our outer perimeter, where each of the Montagnards crouched behind a stump, tree or hastily scooped earthen bulwark. The Lt. moved among the Yards, checking fields of fire and shifting men around to strengthen our defenses. To my front I saw the base of the hill we had just come down. Clouds and shifting mist obscured its top.
Soldiers of the North Vietnamese Army moved among the trees. But getting off a good shot at the moving patches of khaki was difficult because of the distance between us and cover afforded by the trees. Besides, I was low on ammunition and wanted to hold fire as long as possible. I figured everyone else was low on ammo too because of infrequent outgoing fire. The M-79 grenade launcher would have been perfect for lobbing explosive shells into the hill and the NVA positions there. I wondered where it was. I had yet to hear it fired and I guessed it had already gone out on one of the extraction helicopters. A mistake.
Incoming fire was light. Every thirty seconds or so a round snapped overhead or kicked dirt. But the shots weren’t well aimed and you could move around if you needed without much danger of being hit. At the LZ, the NVA kept their distance and there had been no exchange of grenades. Given time, though, they’d surround us and creep in from all sides, tightening the noose. Low on ammunition, we’d be caught in a crossfire and hail of grenades. Crossfire and charge and that is how they wanted it to end.
Download the rest of this and other stories.
|
