Death in the Jungle (12 page)

Then, fifteen meters from the gate, Funkhouser stumbled and started to fall. With arms flailing and body contorting and twisting, he somehow regained his balance. No, I thought, that was not how Kats or I had looked.

Funkhouser lost most of his speed in the near collision with the road, and he lost all of the race. I lost five bucks.

The T-10 area of the Rung Sat Zone, located a few kilometers south of Saigon, was a dangerous place for good guys. It was an area where one hundred percent contact with the enemy occurred. There were big NVA units in the T-10, and we were going in. Ten men from Foxtrot and Alpha Platoons. It was like sending a mouse after a lion, but the lion was drowsy and unsuspecting while the mouse was sneaky and packing a bazooka.

At first light on September 12, 1967, five of us from first squad boarded a Seawolf slick. Five others from Alpha Platoon climbed aboard another Seawolf slick, and together the helos flew us toward our insertion point for my sixth mission as a SEAL in Vietnam.

It was a twenty-minute flight, just above the treetops at a hundred miles per hour to our drop-off, and as we went, I ran the mission through my mind. The plan was to insert in defoliated swampland, about 250 meters north of Rach Vuna Gam, a tributary of the Quan Nhon Trach, then patrol eight hundred meters southwest to our forty-eight-hour ambush site on the stream. The two squads would split twelve-hour shifts on the riverbank with the resting squad maintaining rear security several meters back in the bush.

I looked at the men seated on the deck next to me, and it was obvious they were ready for war. Funkhouser caressed his M-60 machine gun. He was loaded down
with five hundred rounds of 7.62mm linked ammunition belted around his upper torso.

McCollum carried the M-79 grenade launcher with seventy rounds of 40mm HE and ten specialized 40mm canister rounds loaded with 00 buck. Attached to his web belt and ammo pouches were two M-26 fragmentation grenades, two M-3A2 concussion grenades, and two hand-fired pop parachute flares.

Besides carrying the PRC-25 radio, Bucklew was packing an M-16 with 350 rounds of ammo. He was also heavy with grenades: two frags, one concussion, one red and one green smoke grenade, and two red and two white pop para flares.

Mr. Meston boasted an M-16 with three hundred rounds, a frag and concussion grenade, one red and one green smoke grenade, two pop para flares, and a Starlight Scope. Adding to our destructive capabilities, Mr. Meston also carried one thermite incendiary grenade and one white phosphorus (“Willy Peter”) grenade.

I, of course, squeezed Sweet Lips in my hands and toted sixty-six rounds of 00 and an extra fifteen rounds of flechettes.

Each flechette round contained several miniature aluminum arrows packed into its 12-gauge shell. Attached to my ammo pouches were three fragmentation grenades, two concussion grenades, a green smoke grenade, and one M-18 antipersonnel claymore mine. I also carried in my backpack a prisoner-handling kit with gag, blindfold, and line.

In addition, each man packed a strobe light, a pencil flare kit, K-bar knife, an MK-13 day/night flare, bright orange aircraft panel, and a lensatic compass, along with C rats, water, and a first aid kit. On top of all that, the designated swimmer had the fins, coral booties, and stream-crossing line. Guess who?

The five men on the other slick were just as well prepared
and ready for bear, and anybody in his right mind would not have wanted to mess with the ten of us. Nor anybody in his left mind, for that matter.

Bucklew handed me a roll of olive-drab ordnance tape for sealing the bottom of my pants. I wrapped the tape snugly around the tops of my jungle boots, making sure not to leave any opening where leeches and small crabs would be sure to crawl. It was bad enough having malaria-infected mosquitos creeping into my ear canals and nostrils without having bloodsuckers and pincers up my crotch.

After fifteen minutes of flying, the pilot made a fake insertion, and then another a few miles later, to confuse the Viet Cong. Mr. Meston hollered that the next insertion was real and we should prepare to insert.

I slid over to the starboard door and hung my feet out above the strut. Bucklew eased beside me. Funkhouser and McCollum dangled out the portside door as the helo flared and started to descend. Looking down, I wondered where the pilot was going to attempt to drop us. There was nothing but thick, stinking, double-canopy jungle below us.

As we sank lower, I looked out at the propeller rotating above the fast-closing treetops. A few more feet and the blade would be carving out chopsticks. Still, the pilot risked another yard.

The helo ended up hovering a good fifteen feet above the brush and muck when the pilot told Meston, “Go!” My God, I thought, that was a long way down, especially when we were all so heavy with equipment.

Mr. Meston yelled, “Go!” Without hesitation, I jumped. Two seconds later, after sending a Shockwave of pain through my knees, I was sitting on my butt in the mud.

Bucklew jumped next, ending up on his rear end
right beside me. Mud splattered onto my left arm and cheek, but I didn’t mind; it went with the territory.

When McCollum landed behind me, he managed to stay on his feet, but Funkhouser followed with a total collapse. He ended up spread-eagled and face down, four inches deep in the mud. I climbed to my feet as Mr. Meston leapt from the helicopter and finished on his knees at Funkhouser’s side, and together we hoisted Funky out of the wallow he’d created. Funky spit mud through his teeth as I wiped a glob from his left eye.

“Geronimo,” he said without emotion, spitting some more.

I felt like laughing, but one look at the menacing jungle around us stifled the urge. Nothing but thick vegetation—mangrove roots, nipa palm trees, bushes, elephant grass, and Mekong muck. Somehow we had to patrol eight hundred meters through that tangled maze of tropical wait-a-minute to our ambush site.

As the helicopters flew away, I advanced a few meters into a thicket crisscrossed so heavily with branches and vines it resembled a network of huge spider webs. Working my way forward, I felt like the most uncoordinated person on the planet as I pulled one foot out of six inches of mud, lifted it high over a cluster of branches while I shoved others away from my face, then found a place to step down without snapping twigs, as my other foot jerked out of the mud behind me. Every step was a struggle, and the mosquitos made it even tougher.

As I continued my plodding, making more noise than I liked, the nine men trailing me sounded like sundry three-legged crocodiles doing the cha-cha. It was so noisy that any NVA unit within three hundred meters easily would have mistaken us for Dumbo the elephant and his mother. The good news was there probably weren’t any NVA units within three hundred meters, or
three thousand meters. After all, who would R&R in this wretched hellhole of a place? Only SEALs, for whom R&R stood for “raid ’em and rattle ’em.” Right then, however, all the racket was rattling me.

Mr. Meston, breaking too many branches, followed directly behind me, keeping an eye on his watch compass and our direction. Bucklew, carrying the radio behind Mr. Meston, was keeping the pace count, meaning he was counting every step as we went. In thick jungle, where one could see only a few feet through the foliage, compass use and pace count were essential to not getting lost. The T-10 area was not a place in which red, white, and blue lovers could afford to lose their way.

After an hour, the pace count was three hundred. It had taken sixty minutes to travel approximately two hundred meters. I looked back at Mr. Meston and he signaled for me to stop. Everyone halted and we listened awhile.

I heard something in the brush to my left. As I slowly turned my body toward the sound, Sweet Lips pivoted with me at hip-level. I spotted a movement low to the ground, and when it moved again I identified a brown hare. It was a little fellow, perhaps ten inches long. He didn’t appear to notice me, and after a few carefree hops, he was gone.

Mr. Meston waited a couple minutes more, then motioned to me to move.

Two hours later, we’d covered a total of six hundred meters from the point of insertion. We were still two hundred meters from our ambush site, and my attitude was poor. The platoon as a whole was making far too much noise, which increased our danger, and I could hardly stand it anymore. There wasn’t a hint of a breeze, and in the dead quiet outside our perimeter, every snapping stick must have resounded like a rifle shot.

The air temperature was at least ninety, and perspiration
seeped out of every sweat gland in my body. I rubbed countless sweat beads off my forehead with my hand and with them came some of the camouflage paint I’d applied several hours before. I was too late with the wipe as sweat ran into my eyes, forcing them shut with a burning sensation. I squeezed my eyelids, wrinkling up my face, then popped open my eyes just in time to see a twig snap in two against my right shoulder. More of our noise discipline down the toilet. But I didn’t halfway care anymore. Let the gooks hear us and come after us. Then we could get the confrontation and the mission over with.

Come on, Smitty, I scolded myself. Get it together, man. Stay focused. You’re the point man and the guys are trusting you with their lives. Shake off the heat and the problems. Concentrate on your job. Stay alert.

A few seconds later, I was back in the saddle. I knew what I must do and I’d do it as well as was possible under the most trying conditions. But I went only another twenty meters before Mr. Meston signaled me to stop. I watched him as he stepped over a vine and approached me through the brush. He stopped four feet away and looked intently into my eyes. His stare was one of concern, and I knew he was wondering if I was okay. Somehow he had sensed my mental struggle.

I nodded my head and winked at him, which was all the reassurance he needed. With that, he looked back and signaled Bucklew to pass the word for the men to set up a perimeter and to repose right where they were. It was obvious there was no need to form a circle of any kind as we were not moving down an established trail. The terrain dictated much of the tactics, and in that thick mess we simply had to maintain visual contact and strict noise discipline while we rested.

I sat down on some root offshoots of a bush, which kept my backside out of the mud. The heels of my jungle
boots sank a few inches into the slime, however. It was almost impossible not to have some kind of bodily contact with the mud.

Mr. Meston settled down a couple yards away and took a drink of water from one of his canteens. The image of it presented a message to my dehydrated brain that I should do the same. Removing a quart canteen from my web belt, I took a sip, swished it around in my mouth, then swallowed. The water tasted great, even though it was warm. The second swig was long and better yet. I thought I might live through that god-awful day, after all.

I slipped the canteen back into its canvas pouch and took my cammo paint kit out of my pants pocket. The sweat had streaked the cammo on my face, I knew without looking.

After applying the green and black cammo to my cheeks, nose, and forehead, I slid the kit back into my pocket. As I did, something bit the back of my neck. Without too quick of a motion, I reached up with my right hand and found the culprit with my fingers: a red ant. I used the nails on my thumb and index fingers to cut off its malevolent head.

No sooner had I performed the execution and flicked the corpse away than another ant bit my left wrist. This one I brushed onto a ridge of mud near my left boot. My instantly devised plan was to step on it and push it deep into the muck, but I couldn’t get my boot out of the hole it had made.

As the ant raced away, I caught it with the shotgun’s stock and rammed it underground. Sweet Lips delivered the kiss of death again, albeit in a rather unusual style.

Wondering where the ants were coming from, I looked around at the bush behind my back. Sure enough, there were red ants on every limb and leaf. I
also counted six ants on me, crawling on my sleeves and pant legs.

I got Mr. Meston’s attention, made a creepy-crawly motion with my fingers, and pointed at the bush. Mr. Meston nodded at me to go ahead and move. I eased up into a squatting position and gradually pried my feet free of their coffins. Even pulling slowly, I couldn’t eliminate all of the sucking sounds.

After a seminoisy minute, I was sitting on a large root facing the ant bush, which was then seven feet away. From there I could watch the nasty critters and pick them off, one at a time, as they came for me. I hated the ants and I hated their bites; of course, I couldn’t criticize their tactics, which were essentially the same as ours: sneak up on your prey, bite them real hard, and get away.

Only three ants got close enough in the next ten minutes for me to deal with. The first two I killed immediately. The last one I used in practicing my Vietnamese and prisoner interrogation techniques.