Starlight Scope Archives - Page 4 of 5

THE NINTH NIGHT, 30 Days Has September

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...

THE EIGHTH NIGHT, 30 Days has September

by James Strauss | 73 comments

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

THE SEVENTH NIGHT SECOND PART, 30 Days Has September

by James Strauss | 29 comments

I stayed in my clustered hooch into the dark hours, whiling away the time it would take for the NVA to begin their own H&I fires. The concept of H&I (harassing and interdicting fire) created back at Fort Sill, had been used in Vietnam for years without any...

THE SIXTH NIGHT 2nd PART, 30 Days Has September

by James Strauss | 38 comments

The rain came and the smell came with it, but it was no longer hot. The altitude had taken the steam heat and reduced it to an oily cloying mass of moving air, feeling like spider webs so intensely that I constantly brushed my hands across my face…..

THE FIFTH NIGHT SECOND PART 30 Days Has September

by James Strauss | 22 comments

Zippo didn’t get back from retrieving the starlight scope from Rittenhouse until full dark. There’d been no fire from the hill. I’d registered our new position but not ordered a fire mission. I knew it wouldn’t be long. I wasn’t afraid of taking fire from a heavy...