I lay in my hooch, dug into the side of the hill through the effort of using Fusner’s entrenching tool. The hill was too slanted to lay against without a step being carved into its side. Fusner was just down from me,
I waited, my body spread face down and flat on the jungle floor. It would have been a time of rest and relaxation if an attack by unknown numbers of wily, capable and well-armed opponents weren’t also waiting somewhere out in the night.
I lay prone on the jungle mat of fallen leaves, fronds and smaller branches. I couldn’t tell how deep the mass under me was, although back at the hole we’d blown earlier, the jungle floor mat seemed like it was almost a foot thick. It was better than the mud. We had...
Relief flooded through me. It was over. I’d survived another of what my team called ‘fire fights’. There was no way to adjust to the change from combat to whatever this was. It was still dark. My ears still rang. But with my night vision returning, I could vaguely see...
The move was a long hard one. In training I’d literally run twenty miles with a forty-pound pack on my back carrying an M-14 and wearing a full helmet and liner. I had none of those things going down the ridge, in hopes of coming in behind whatever units were set up to ambush