Death in the Jungle Gary Smith (mobi reader txt) 📖

a few minutes after our attack. Just a normal reaction to sudden excitement. I remember them having shaken after I killed a big whitetail buck a few years earlier. I had spent a whole day hunting for him, and in an unexpected moment, there he was. I had quickly raised my rifle and fired once, and as I had looked on the ground for signs of blood, my hands had shaken. Same as that night.

My ears quit ringing in a little while, and minutes later I heard a boat coming fast downstream. Using prearranged long and short radio clicks, Mr. Meston directed the coxswain toward our location.

As the boat drew closer, Mr. Meston signaled with his red-lens flashlight. The coxswain cut way back on the throttle and softly nudged the bow of the boat into the vegetation on the riverbank. I could see the silhouette of the coxswain and the gunner, who were the only crew aboard.

Mr. Khan and Funkhouser climbed over the bow and into the boat, followed by myself and McCollum. Mr. Meston and Bucklew, with the radio, came last. Usually, the patrol leader and the radioman were the last to extract simply because they had the radio for communications, and the patrol leader had to set the example. The boat then backed away from the foliage while all of us trained our weapons on both banks of the river.

Once we turned upstream, the coxswain poured it on and we sped the two hundred and fifty meters to the Song Ba Gioi. There we swung westward and went full throttle, which was thirty-five knots with a full load. I was wet all over, and the wind seemed colder on the big river. But it was no biggie. In ten minutes we’d climb aboard Mighty Moe, the big LCM-6 which would escort us back to Nha Be and a beer party I was still alive to enjoy.

I raised Sweet Lips defiantly toward the night sky and, with all eyes on me, whispered “Hoo-yah!” which was the cry of UDT/SEALs. The others responded with quiet hoo-yahs, maintaining a semblance of noise discipline. Still, the release felt good. Our morale was high. Another mission was over, this time with two estimated KIAs. Thank God, I wasn’t one of them. It was not my epitaph being inscribed that day.

CHAPTER THREE

It was a long boat ride back to Nha Be on Mighty Moe, and as we reached the naval base, the sun was already lifting over the horizon. I’d been awake for thirty hours but couldn’t sleep had I wanted to, and I wanted to. But the whole squad was flying high. We’d had our first action of the tour, and it was time to let everyone on the base know it.

As we disembarked, there were many howls and hoo-yahs. One of the Seawolf pilots stood near his gunship on the helo pad and gave us a quick wave. I raised Sweet Lips high over my head in salute to that courageous man. Funkhouser sauntered beside me and wrapped an arm around my neck for a friendly squeeze. I looked right into his face and yelled, “Hoo-yah!”

Funky slid away, saying, “Smitty, your breath smells like a three-day-old dead dink!” I puckered my lips and sent my buddy a kiss. He just grinned.

We entered the barracks and headed immediately upstairs to the twenty-by-twenty-foot briefing/intelligence room for debriefing. Our squad entered the room with the mobile support team right behind us, followed by the Seawolf crews and Lieutenant Salisbury. Altogether there were twenty men in the room, all of whom had had a part in the mission, with the exception of Mr. Salisbury, the detachment OIC.

The door to the room closed and Mr. Meston began the debriefing. He spent several minutes reviewing the mission, then specially thanked the mobile support and Seawolf crews for their assistance.

Finally, Mr. Meston asked for suggestions. After a few statements of lessons learned and recommendations, I had one: “Next time out, McCollum needs to avoid beans.” With that comment, Mr. Salisbury congratulated us, then excused us to clean up.

Cleanup started with the basics. Everything was muddy, and the mud had to go. Wearing my muddy cammies and all my gear, holding Sweet Lips in my hands, I stepped into the rough shower the Seabees had made for us. I turned on the overhead spray and salty water, pumped from the Long Tau River, washed over me. The water was unheated, but it was not very cold.

After rinsing Sweet Lips, I set her outside the shower room. I began stripping off my gear and clothes while standing beneath the running water, cleaning things as I went. The water at my feet was brown as it swirled around the extra-large drain. Several minutes later, though, my clothes and gear were thoroughly flushed, and I was as clean and shiny as a real seal.

Once out of the shower, I slipped into my blue-and-gold T-shirt, UDT swim trunks, and coral booties. The wet clothes and gear I hung on pegs in a dressing room adjacent to the showers, intending to take the clothes to Nga’s, a laundry in Nha Be, the next day. The cleaning of Sweet Lips, however, had barely started.

I took the shotgun to a small wooden table with a jerry-built tin roof over it, located next to our barracks. A big metal tub filled with diesel fuel sat on the ground beside the table. There I disassembled the weapon and washed it in the diesel, using several sizes of firm-bristle brushes to scrub each part. A meticulous cleansing got off all of the salt and carbon residue.

After the diesel bath, I wiped the parts dry with a towel, then used special lubricants on every inch of the weapon before putting it back together. When I was done, Sweet Lips looked and smelled like a new girl.

I returned Sweet Lips to the armory, where she would be stored until I needed her again. Then I entered the ground floor of our