The darkness of the night was so incredibly deep it would almost seem as if it were a dream. The chilling breeze ran through the dense forest and wrapped each of us in its cold grip. We can only hope they’re having as much difficulty as us. Hope is all I seem to have anymore.
We were sent on a search and retrieve mission. Top secret shit, the kind that makes you write letters to your loved ones. I wasn’t told much about the mission or even the objective. All I know is that we have to go kill some dirty commies and burn some buildings to the ground. The retrieve part of our mission is a piece of intel that headquarters wants us to grab. They say it’s a map of artillery positions. I can’t help but think they are downplaying the importance and utility of this intel. I find it hard to believe they are sending an entire squad during the night to retrieve artillery pieces that we likely already have positions on from the sky. Just another day.
We trudged forward through the foliage. Our CO would give us a whispering shout every half minute or so to make sure everyone was on path. The darkness was too heavy to bear. Once we passed the tree line things became better than worse.
“Well how the fuck are we supposed to know where we’re going?”
“Calm down Private. Let’s take a minute to think.”
In an instant the moon popped through the overcast and provided us with much needed light. It was as if the entire area had a flashlight hit on it.
“See, problem solved.”
We took four strides before our CO clambered, “well shit. Prepare to get wet.”
The only thing between us and our objective was about a football field’s length of marsh and swamp. Hoisting our rifles above our heads we sunk down to eye level with the thick and lingering fog as we marched forward in the swamp.
“I didn’t sign up for this,” Private Pilcher chirps from the back, sludge spitting out of his mouth.
“I better not be hearing any doubt in your voice Private!” our CO barked angrily.
Pilcher got quiet and stayed that way for the duration of the trip.
We hit the other side of the swamp and immediately began to dry and clean off best we could. While we brushed ourselves again trees and changed into whatever we had in our packs a humming noise began to be heard in the distance.
“We weren’t supposed to get any air support, right sir?”
“Not that I know of…”
The humming turned into a buzz.
“…so I think that may be our cue to hurry the fuck up.”
We ran double time to hide ourselves into the new plot of trees. As we ran a loud clicking bang came from the plane. We all jumped behind rocks, trees, whatever we could find. When we looked to see where the bomb had landed, we viewed the swamp we had just battled through set ablaze by the napalm.
“Ho-holy fuck! Do you think that was intended for us?”
“They’ve been doing random napalm runs to stop possible night ops. Yes and no. We were lucky either way.”
After we calmed down from the spectacle we began our march over the climbing hill of forest. The trip had become thankfully stagnant.
Once we got to the top we got a taste of our final objective. We had a perfect view down onto the base. It was less a base and more a shanty town, wooden structures littering the area with commies patrolling around.
“Well now what? I’m not even quite sure what we’re doing yet,” Private Nathan blurted softly.
“This base has important intel that HQ wants and we need to retrieve it. Simple as that.”
It wasn’t that simple.
“Time to call in our support.”
“I thought we didn’t have support?” I yelped under my breath.
“It’s not your typical air support Private.”
“I don’t care if it’s napalm, fire bombs, jeeps or my fucking grandma, just call it.”
Sergeant Stevenson spat out a request to HQ and our coordinates. After some affirmations we were left in the dark with nothing more than, “she’s on her way.”
"Her? Did I hear that right? I'm all for romanticising war Sergeant, it's why I got suckered into coming here, that and to kill some zipperheads and commies, but her?"
An answer was cut short by the sound of an in-air explosion from behind us. The noise cracked through the air like lightning. We looked up to see an orb of exploding lights illuminating the night sky. The branches of light quickly began to rip towards us.
“Get back now,” Stevenson left no room for reply.
We ran back into the forest towards the napalm crisped swamp, the sounds of bewildered Vietnamese at our back.
The lights stopped above the camp, several miles high, and then as fast as they stopped, came burning down. They sped faster and faster as we ran to take cover, not sure what was about to happen. Then they came to a blisteringly abrupt stop, about 20 or 30 feet off the ground in the middle of the camp. After that I was blinded.
My eyes burned but quickly opened to reveal all the colours of the rainbow flaming around me, having burnt the forest to cinders.
We slowly collected ourselves from our cover and began rushing to inspect the base.
“Holy sweet Jesus! That was amazing! We need to use “her” more often!”
It was fairly evident nothing was left but ash. The base and the people stationed there were gone.
“So much for intel eh Sarge?”
A small patch of ashes began to vibrate, putting us at attention and on guard. The patch rose above the ground, about 3 ½ feet, and slowly the ashes tumbled off to reveal it was a blue figure with papers in its mouth.
“Looking for this, boys?”
Just another day.
We all stood perfectly still, merely in awe. I remember hearing Jeremy whispering the Our Father under his breath as the creature moved towards us. We had no orders to shoot and we were all fairly sure Sergeant Stevenson knew what was going on.
As the blue figure got closer Stevenson broke the silence, “I don’t know if that’s the intel but it doesn’t look like we are going to be finding it anywhere else.”
Then the creature spoke again, “sorry about that, I wasn’t given any direction on how much land needed to come down so I gave it a good burst.”
As she spoke Stevenson took the papers from her and began inspecting them. Her voice rang with a sweetness most of us hadn’t heard since before the war.
“This seems to be them. Thanks soldier,” he said as he gave a solute to our air support.
With nothing more than a returned solute she shot upwards, and quickly was out of sight.
“Well what the fuck was that Sarge?” Pilcher blurted moments after her take off.
“That was our air support Private.”
“No shit, I meant what the fuck is it? An animal? A person?”
“All I knew calling HQ was that it was an experimental unit.”
Private Jeremy Colmer interrupted sarcastically, “that explains it.”
Stevenson continued, “I don’t know what it was but I didn’t think it was of use to act hostile towards something that just took out 20 acres of land and Reds. We don’t have time to discuss this standing still, let’s move out.”
The trip back to home base was filled with chatter about the mission, and more specifically, the air support. None of us had any idea what it could have been. At least, not a realistic thought. Everyone was jokingly theorizing that it was what they did to pilot Aces after a decade of duty. Others said it was the true form of the Red Baron renamed the Blue Baron.
Once we crossed back over the swamp the sun spiked over the horizon making the rest of the voyage back easy, a nice change from the night before. It was difficult to sleep that night with so many questions brewing in our minds. It didn’t help that we were going to the front the next day. We never had a dull moment.
…
The morning was incredibly hectic for us. We were commissioned to jump to the front where a skirmish between us and the Vietnamese was getting increasingly intense. Apparently it went from a small firefight to a full fledged battle. We were told that we’d be heading in with an armour column and the Vietnamese would be softened up with air support. We anxiously looked at each other when air support came up.
No time was wasted gearing up and heading out to the trucks.
Pilcher piped up immediately boarding the back of the truck, “air support eh?”
“This again Neil?” Baker said, clearly annoyed, “I know how bad you want to fuck her but give it a rest.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to put it.”
“I have a theory,” Jeremy yelled as he jumped on the truck, “the first part would be of course, seduction.”
Baker, finding the bashing of Pilcher to be much funnier than it really was, snapped back, “Neil couldn’t seduce a zipperhead if he was a sushi bar.”
Sergeant Stevenson and Private Nathan Hadresham, who everyone just called Private Nathan, were last to board and within minutes we were on our way to the front.
I was never one to care about conflict. I didn’t have the slightest clue where we were going or where we were, beyond Vietnam. I also didn’t have any interest to find out. I just wanted to see my family and I was willing to do so by plane or body bag.
The drive to the front was one of the worst trips of my life. It felt like we were in a paint can being shaken furiously. The road was desolated with pot holes from bombs and land mines. Nobody else seemed to mind though.
The engines of the trucks and tanks that drove with us gave an incredible hum. It was as if a swarm of bees had burrowed themselves in my head. The noise was all the more amplified due to the small dirt road we travelled over with forest on both sides. The forest was so thick around us that the sun was dampened by the overhanging branches requiring the drivers to use headlights.
Colmer competed with the engines, “hey Baker, what was it like living in Britain?”
Baker shouted back, “not that much different than America. I don’t remember enough though; I left when I was 5.”
“I always wanted to live there.”
“It’s not your fancy eutopian paradise. It’s got shit just like everywhere else.”
Nathan thinking he was smart, yelled, “One man’s shit is another man’s treasure.”
“So what was in that intel we got yesterday Sarge?” Pilcher said, changing the subject and trumping the engines.
“I don’t know. I had no actual idea if it was the proper intel or not, but the mission was so vague I figured any papers would do.”
“Doesn’t that seem a bit suspicious that HQ didn’t give us more specific details? And didn’t care about the random papers?”
“Not really. I doubt HQ is sending us around for nothing. They must have some plan.”
“What about our air support? I don’t care if we’ve talked about it already. That was fucked up.”
“I couldn’t tell you anymore than you know. Maybe we’ll get some more answers today if she’s on the field.”
I finally spoke up, “I still can’t wrap my head around “she”. That whole mess yesterday was just fucked.”
“Thank you,” Pilcher said feeling pleased to have support, “I think we should march right into headquarters and demand answers.”
“Ask what? Why is there a flying animal helping us kill the bad guys? Smarten up solider and just forget about it for now.”
The familiar sound of gunshots and buzzing finally came into audible range.
Stevenson stood up and began an abridged debriefing, “our mission today is much straighter forward than lately, we are to defend and eventually push forward on the enemy’s positions. Depending on the status of the battle we could be pushing forward immediately. Keep your head on straight and make sure to follow each other with room in between. Good luck as always.”
The passenger in the front cab yelled back to us, “The drop off zone is hot so prepare to disembark as quickly as possible. We’ll be pulling up beside the end of a trench so you can dive right in.”
Sarge nodded in confirmation and we prepare for the worst. I hadn’t been in much real conflict yet. I’ve fought in small firefights, but it’s difficult to call something a fight when you’re fighting rifles against armour. I hadn’t even taken a man’s life yet, something I was unsure how I’d react to.
As soon as we broke off from the trail and entered the combat zone my eyes were stricken by the bright sunlight and ears bitten by gunfire and engines from above. At one point I wished I was back at the napalm baked swamp.
Our fellow American forces were stationed atop a slight hill with some tin bunkers, dug trenches and mounted guns covering our line. Down the incline, about 300 feet was the enemy line. Patched over with trees it was difficult to see them if not for the sparks of bullets coming from their trenches. Men also crept from both sides to try to break through the lines in hopes of ending the battle as soon as possible.
The armour column that was in our convoy began to go off to complete their respective orders. The tanks moved ahead to attempt to destroy their front while the trucks and jeeps began dropping off reinforcements.
Several pings plastered the front of our truck as bullets sped off the metal. We all kept down as far as we could as we approached the trenches. Our driver slammed the breaks and began yelling for us to get out which we didn’t hesitate to comply.
We were lucky to all make the movement in safely as we spun around to view other trucks that had been hit by mortars or drivers killed by snipers on approach.
“I hope our luck doesn’t run out,” Pilcher murmured as we ran through the trench, dodging the men already stationed and firing while keeping low as to avoid incoming fire.
When we arrived to the midway point where the hastily fashioned bunked rested we saw a familiar image. It was our air support again.
“You guys again? You must be becoming HQ’s favourite new weapon,” she said as arrived.
“With all due respect I’d like to think of me and my men as soldiers first,” Stevenson said with defensive pride.
“Just some light-hearted fun Sergeant. I respect what you are your men have done. Brave soldiers, each one of you. I assume you’ve already been briefed?”
“Yes, we have.”
“Great. Then feel free to grab extra ammo if you need some and do what you need to.”
We all nodded, again struck by awe, but Pilcher wasn’t as silent, “what are you?”
I froze out of curiosity at the question.
“I was wondering when one of you would ask. I’m Codename Dash. I can’t tell you much, but I’m the American military’s air support’s newest and proudest member.”
“Okay, Dash, but what are you.”
She became physically cold and withdrawn, “I think you men have a duty to do.”
Stevenson pulled Pilcher back and we began running through the trench again.
“You are one dumb bastard Pilcher,” Baker chirped.
“Well now we know something about her.”
“I don’t want to hear from you for a while Private,” Stevenson shouted, “That was none of your Goddamn business.”
Before we even made it to an opening location on the trench the men were preparing to assault the Vietnamese trenches. We stopped and joined their attack, clambering over the mud constructed wall.
The entire attack felt as if it was in slow motion. My first view was the man in front of me falling to his knees, bullet through the head. To my right I saw an array of tanks pushing in when one hit a landmine, exploding and killing some of its men around it. My squad was in tact, running forward with the rest of the howling soldiers. Planes skidded above firing at each other and strafing the ground. The Vietnamese had even begun a counter attack, ditching their trench for a solid ground charge.
I’ve never understood what was worth dying for here and after this, I never will.
We made it above halfway before we halted to allow armour to catch up. I dropped to my knee and began firing my rifle. The adrenaline was pumping through me like a steam engine and after the first few kills I found out my reaction, none. They were trying to kill me and the only way to survive was to kill them. At least, in my position.
Another group of tanks moved in front of us, giving temporary cover. Stevenson ran behind one and issued the rest of us to file in.
“Woo-ee! This is getting good now!” Pilcher said as if he was having fun.
“You’re awfully giddy Pilcher,” I said with a spit and a pant.
“I guess I’m just feeling lucky.”
The tanks began to rumble signalling they were about to move. I slowly moved out of its road in order to follow the cover it provided for a few more moments. As I moved with the machine I saw the bodies of men that died on the first half alone. I figured they were better off than me.
Seeing so many people lying with their lives stripped away gave me courage. I knew that nothing could be worse than what I was already going through. I had killed men, had bombs and bullets shot at me, almost died numerous times and was living a life that made me envious of those in poverty. Death seemed like the ultimate reward.
Conflict quickly escalated again when planes were heard coming in for a second run. Our air presence was dwindling and the Vietnamese seemed to be steadily increasing theirs.
The planes went overhead and to our surprise, you couldn’t even hear the click.
