There existed no corridor through the jungle, like the one that cut through the undergrowth located on the other side of the river. There, the night before, it had been easy to move back and forth through that protected passage to communicate, supply, reinforce, attack, and even defend against the opposing enemy. The jungle Nguyen, Fusner, and I crawled through was something else again. The ‘floor’ we moved over consisted of packed fern leaves, stalks, bamboo, palm fronds, and much more in the way of mashed fetid flora and infesting small fauna. The mass was packed down to the point that it allowed for working across its surface but that surface also came apart in awful rain-soaked handfuls when it was attempted to be grasped or pulled at. The only way to proceed at all was to push one’s body forward with legs spread, using that lower pressed down weight to surge in waves, allowing only hard-fought inch by inch forward progress to be made.

My decision to immediately dive into the jungle and make for where Kilo Company was somehow pinned down against the river had been instantly made and without notification. The Gunny would not have approved, I knew, and he’d probably have been right. But I was driven. Kilo had been ‘sacrificed’ twice before by my actions, and giving them up to save myself, or even my company wasn’t something I could live with, and I knew it way down deep. I’d told Hutzler and he’d come up with the idea of giving us some covering fire, as long as we moved in a straight line from the Ontos to the river. There was no let-up from the steady rain. I was reminded of some old writing I’d read in my youth about Chinese water torture, wherein drops of water were beaten steadily down on a victim’s forehead until that victim went insane. Was I going insane? Was I already insane? I grasped my muddy wet hand down to my muddy wet pocket, where my letter home to my wife was tucked inside of its sealed and protective plastic bag. I had a home. I had a wife. I had a daughter. I could not afford to be insane. I could not afford to die and let them be turned loose in a world that was much more dangerous and unforgiving than they would ever comprehend. They would never comprehend if I lived. I gave no orders to Nguyen or Fusner. I knew I didn’t have to. I simply told them where we were going. Neither man said anything. If I lived, I wondered at that second, whether I would ever have more willing, more loyal, or more trusting men around me in my life again.

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