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

UNITS INVOLVED: Foxtrot Platoon

TASK: Recon patrol, 24 hour river ambush

METHOD OF INSERTION: LCM-6

METHOD OF EXTRACTION: LCM-6

TERRAIN: Mangrove swamp, underwater at high tide

TIDE: 0500H High, 1209H Low, 1900H High, 0100H Low

MOON: None

WEATHER: Cloudy with rain

SEAL TEAM PERSONNEL:

Lt. (jg) Schrader, Patrol Leader/Rifleman, M-16

RM2 Smith, Point/Rifleman, Shotgun

BT2 McCollum, Grenadier, M-79

BT2 Moses, Rifleman, M-16

ADJ2 Markel, Radioman/Rifleman, M-16

ADJ3 Flynn, Automatic Weapons, M-60

HM2 Brown, Corpsman/Rifleman, M-16

AZIMUTHS: 120 degrees-500m

ESCAPE: 090 degrees

PHASE LINE: None

CODE WORDS: Challenge and Reply-Two numbers total 10

Mr. Meston, Flynn, and I, totally subdued, made our way back to the Rach La and Long Tau intersection. As we arrived, we saw Mr. Schrader and the five other men walking up the Rach La toward us. Mr. Meston sat down on a large root of a bush and closed his eyes for several seconds. Flynn and I stood nearby and watched the others approach.

“Anything?” Mr. Schrader inquired, even though he easily could see by our demeanor that we’d struck out.

I shook my head. No one said a thing until Mr. Meston looked up at Markel, the radioman.

“Bring the radio,” he ordered. Markel moved to Mr. Meston’s side and Mr. Meston used the radio to report our need for extraction. After the transmission, Mr. Meston directed us to set up in a semicircle perimeter until the boats arrived. McCollum and Flynn took the right and left flank positions, and I sat down on a clump of grass next to Flynn.

“This is a shitty day, and someone’s gonna have to pay,” Flynn muttered in my direction.

I put my head down and stared at my hands. The hands that had tied up Kats.

Why hadn’t he snapped the tape and saved himself? I wondered. He must’ve banged his head when the boat had swamped, or he had gone into the water and had hit his head beneath the boat. That had to have been the answer. He had been knocked unconscious. So, who was gonna pay for that?

I glanced at Lieutenant Meston in the center of our circle. He was our leader, a part of us, yet somehow he seemed singled out and solitary. He saw me looking and returned my gaze. I stared for another couple of seconds, then I looked away, knowing that it was he the Navy would blame. I believed the lieutenant already had figured that out. And it was a shame. No one was a culprit in this. Katsma’s death was just a sad, unfortunate, heartbreaking accident.

My ears picked up a distant vibration, and I recognized the whirring sound of helicopters. Checking the sky for several seconds, I finally spotted two Seawolves approaching from the west. They were flying along the Long Tau’s southern bank, right over the top of us, no doubt having been called in on the search for Katsma’s body.

As the helos passed by, I saw the gunner in the lead chopper give us a wave of recognition. I waved back once. The gunner in the second helo just looked. I looked at my teammates and saw Markel and McCollum greeting the Wolves’ presence with waves of their hands. As always, we were glad to accept the help of our friends in the air.

A few minutes later, Mr. Meston directed two PBRs to our location. Having intercepted the Dust-off transmission earlier, the thirty-one-foot river patrol boats, each bearing five-man crews, had hurried to assist us. The ten of us split into two groups and boarded the boats for transport to Mighty Moe.

While we journied downstream, I studied the river along the southern bank for a minute. Then my eyes focused on the water splashing beside the boat. This is the water that got Kats, I thought to myself. Fifty or sixty feet deep, with a six-knot current, the Long Tau River had taken my mate. Dammit. Water was supposed to be a SEAL’s friend.

“Smitty.” Mr. Meston’s voice broke my train of thought. I turned my eyes to the lieutenant.

“Smitty, I want you and Mr. Schrader to stay with the PBR and keep looking for Katsma’s body. The rest of us will go back to the base. I’m gonna have to get with Lieutenant Salisbury over this and fill him in on the details.”

I nodded my head. “Aye, aye, sir.”

“I still don’t know what the hell could’ve happened,” Mr. Meston grumbled.

“Me neither,” I declared.

We didn’t wait long to find out. When the PBRs reached Mighty Moe, everyone from our platoon but Mr. Schrader and me boarded the big boat. Lieutenant Jackson immediately explained the accident to Lieutenant Meston. Mr. Meston, in turn, sent Moses from Mighty Moe to join us on the river patrol boat and our search. Since Moses had been in the Boston Whaler with Katsma when it was swamped, he started telling me the grim details as the PBR moved away from the LCM-6.

“When the Boston Whaler came along the port side of Mighty Moe, the coxswain all of a sudden cut the gas, causing the bow to dip. With seven men aboard, plus the .30-caliber machine gun and two sandbags in the bow, this was a bad move. Three of the boat support people stepped on the starboard gunnel, grabbing for Mighty Moe. This was the second bad move. That’s when we capsized. There was no need to panic, ’cause the Whalers won’t sink, anyway. I saw Doc try to hold Katsma, but he lost his grip. Kats went underwater and never came back up.” Moses stared at me for a reaction.

“Shit,” was all I gave him.

Moses looked out of the boat at the water and spat. “I’m sure he smacked his head under Mighty Moe,” he said, looking back at me.

“What makes you so sure,” I wanted to know.

“ ’Cause we turned over right into Mighty Moe, and the current was sucking us beneath her. I’ll bet he hit his head on the prop guards.”

Moses’s theory made sense. After all, in UDT training back in ’65, all of us had been tied just like I had tied Katsma, then we had been tossed in deep water where we kicked