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I am about 3/4ths done with this book and thought I would let visitors review a little bit of it. Let me know what you think.

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The Purple Heart   

 

 

    Walking along the steep edge of the mountain was in itself dangerous. The fact that is was shell rock made it even more so. With each step your foot would slide down into the rock several inches. This made keeping your balance tough, keeping your balance with one leg damaged and one arm leaking red made each step seem timeless. I could feel the moisture in my left boot and at this altitude and temperature I knew it was not sweat. With each step the shell rock was cutting into the leather side of my boot and had eventually made its way to my ankle.

 

     As I stopped and looked down the mountain I was faced with several options. If I lost my footing and began to roll down the mountain I could find comfort in the fact that the standing dead trees between me and the bottom would insure I was nothing more than a broken bag of bones when I arrived at the bottom. There was however a slim chance I would slide all the way down and missed the standing dead, but then by the time I did reach the bottom I would be like an air mattress with no air as the shell rock would have cut and lacerated my body and most if not all of the blood would be left along the side of the mountain for nature to remove at it seen fit.

 

     Option three was the good Lord would allow me to find a small shelf of some type before darkness set it where I could at least sit down and tend the areas of my body that where leaking red. If God really loved me this shelf would be large enough I could stretch out and possible get some rest. The shady side of the mountain was darkening rather fast and I was running out of light. I could not stop for there was no place to sit, I could not stop and rest standing as It took a lot of energy to support myself and as the muscles tightened to maintain balance this forced the red out at a much faster pace.

 

     Recon; now there is word for you, why don’t they just call it slow death or something, anything but Recon.

 

     Slow death, yea that’s right. There was one more problem besides the mountain, the rocks and the bleeding. Every drop of blood left behind was like fluorescent pins in the beams of headlights, and easy marker for those who would be the hunters.

 

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  I know what your thinking, it will soon be dark and even the hunter will have to stop for the night. Well that is true, that is if the hunter was human, the one that was interested in me was not.

 

     You are led to believe that no matter what happens, no matter what you encounter your training will get you through. I fell for this bull shit; I played games in my mind each and every moment of the day. You know, what if this happens or that, what’s my plan to engage and evade. It was constant this game, for it was the only way I could convince myself I would someday see the smiling faces of family again, and I don’t mean when we all gather at the gates to heaven. My philosophy was simple, Kill them all and go home alive. Can you imagine and eighteen year old boy saying that.

 

     But then there were the rules of engagement. Every thing you read or seen on the television showed how only innocent women and children were being killed by US soldiers. There was very little mentioned about the other group of people, the Viet Kong.

 

     These guys where something, If America every decided to wage a war again there is a lot we can learn from this one. Our adversary was unique in the fact that nothing affected them. The loved the monsoon rains, they loved the night and the darkness that came with it and they embellished the fear they had created among the non combatants.

 

     The Viet Kong had zero tolerance for anyone who was an American sympathizer.

The brutal tactics they used to keep the villagers in line played like a Halloween movie one could watch in America within the safety of our Great Nation. These guys where the best actors in the world, they would come at night when all was quite and peaceful. Storming the villages as they fired there weapons forcing everyone out into the open. Once they had the people gathered and shaking with fear the horror would begin.

 

     If every adult man and woman in America could see this just once in real life, there would never be another protest, there would never be another Flag Burning and there would never be another sit in. There would only be one slogan spoken in respect to this war, “Kill them All”.

 

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      The dog tags in my pants pocket of my two friends was my reason for the slogan. Since I was somewhat alive you could say my training was what saved me. That’s Bull Shit, trust me that had nothing to do with it. When you are walking along diligently doing your job, searching for the enemy and the area around you suddenly comes alive with gun fire, there is no training for that. You just dive to the ground and start wondering what in the hell was that.

 

     By the time you realize the trouble your in, your either dead or getting real close to being dead. Do I stand up and return fire, well let’s see. Since I have no idea in this jungle where the shooting is coming from that may not be such a good plan. Should I raise my head up and try to get a look see, well lets see, they are shooting at anything that moves so that may not be a very good plan either.

 

     I know, I will slowly turn my head back towards my friend and we can may come up with some sort of hand signals to follow. I turned my head from right to left to see what Jeff and Oscar wanted to do. Jeff was right there, well half of him was right there I had no idea were the rest of him was. From what I could of Oscar he was sort of balled up. His head was under his body, his shoulders where stuck in the ground and his ass was sticking up in the air. His clothing was red now instead of camouflage and the pool of blood at his shoulders told me I was all alone. Eighteen years and four months, in a place I had never been two friends dead and bullets flying all around me. Who in the hell at that time in their life had any idea what to do.

 

     As I looked for a place to hide or to find cover so I could at least fight back I saw a good tree and foliage just a few feet slightly down from where I was. Jeff’s M-16 was right next to me and having two rifles was better that one. I went to reach out with my left hand to snag the rifle, and try as I did my left arm did not respond. I flipped over on my back in a panic for I knew I was hurt. As I looked at my left arm I could see the red soaked sleeve, God that sent panic through me. It also sent something else, something they can’t teach you in basic training, it sent anger. Enough anger to put you in a defense mode.

 

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      I wiggled down the slope a little and found my cover. The shooting had stopped but I had no idea if it was over. As I wondered what in the world do I do now, I heard the voices. As I peaked around the tree I saw two small men dressed in black begin to approach with their weapons at the ready. They must have figured we were all dead. Well guess what you pieces of shit, not quite. As they closed in on Oscar, standing there as if they were some sort of war hero, I send their tiny black dressed ass’s to hell with the help of my right hand and one grenade.

 

     In the silence I must have set for awhile as I tended to my wounded arm. It wasn’t bad, after looking at it for what seemed like hours, it wasn’t bad. I cut off a piece of my shirt sleeve and applied a field dressing as best I could, I sure as hell had no medical training, so I did it like Momma would have I did however miss the kiss that always seemed to make it better.

 

     I began to assess my situation. Lets see I was the youngest in the group, I had no idea where I was and not sure where I needed to go, now fear began to set in and the anger which had saved my life and gave me the strength to survive slowly dissipating.

 

     Now that the anger was the gone, the pain started. It was amazing the whole time from the start of the fire fight to moment when I started to assess my situation there was no pain. Our body is truly an amazing thing. I thought of at least ten different plans in my moment of panic. They raced through my head like the cars at the Indianapolis speed way zoomed by the spectators.

 

     I as slowly began to conceive that I would stay here and die; once again I started to get pissed. I had a reason for being on this earth and sitting here and dieing was not it.

I had to get up and get moving; now this thought was probably part of my training.

 

     I gathered the essentials, bloody map from Oscar, dog tags from both men. Busted up the rifles, scattered the ammunition and buried the grenades, put what the Marine Corp called clay mores in my pack along with some of there food and water and started moving to a new location so I could figure out where I was and where I was going.

 

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      From what seemed like years ago my Father had taught me wounded animals always run down hill. I have no idea if that is true or not but it did make sense. If you were hurting and gasping for a breath of air down did seem to be the better choice. Since I figured everybody else might think the same way I decided to go up hill. Yeah I know, going up hill wounded would only increase the bleeding and may lead to a faster death. All alone, bleeding somewhat and only the dog tags of your two closest friend’s, the sounds of the enemy all around you made a more sudden death seam like the better choice.

 

     I crawled on my belly as best I could slowly working my way around the thick brush and began to angle up hill. My Father may have been smarter than I gave him credit for. As I pushed my way up hill I found this big old tree with what seemed like a pasture of fern growing all around it. It made perfect cover for someone who needed a little rest. By backing into the tree there I sat. With my ass in the dirt and back against this monster of a tree I had small areas I could see back down to where everything I knew had suddenly changed. I looked closely and there was movement alright. Not a lot, just enough to know they where looking down hill for any survivors. They could have however been looking for who ever it was that sent their two amigo’s to rice heaven.

 

     I must have dosed off for a little while. Now that is scary. I mean just think about it. You have just been wounded, seen two friends get killed, killed two combatants, I use that term because of my new found hatred for the enemy. Killers searching to maim and torture anyone left alive and I fell asleep.

 

     Waking up was anything but enjoyable. I was scared to death; I had this instant flash the combatants where right on top of me swinging their machete while laughing aloud. Once I realized all was well I began to slowly get a grip on myself. I checked my arm and adjusted the bandage, check my gear, gave the surrounding area several once over looks to convince myself I was alone. When the sounds around me said it was now safe I got to feet and began the journey up hill.

 

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      After what seemed like hours of slow moving, trying to keep my strength and not bleed to death I saw it. What looked like some sort of game trail, lots of usage, the ground was very loose even in this wet climate. The trail looked like it would make my trip to top a little easier. As I stood there pondering my decision I was leaning on some sort of tree with my right hand on my upper thigh for support. With my head down my eyes gazed upon the trail with what seemed like some sort of super natural power of vision. I mean the track I saw was huge. I had seen tracks like that before but never one that size. It was some sort of cat, you know, mountain lion, tiger, I don’t know but what I did know was I did not want to find out.

 

     As weak as I was feeling I don’t think I could have whooped my Mothers cat let alone something this big. I cut across the trail and continued my journey up hill, moving a little faster and little more uneasy. Not only did I have to worry about being attacked by the enemy, now I had this other problem. It was my random pattern and desire to put as much distance between me and that paw print was how I found myself scaling this damn shell rock.

 

     I spent a lot of time looking around me, behind me and even above me. I could not see anything moving but I knew something was out there. I could just tell that I was being pursued, what I didn’t know was if it was man or beast. I could see the turn of the ridge just ahead and there was some sign of a rock formation.

 

It was however now night time. In this country when it is night time it is dark. It was not like back in the states. Even on the darkest of nights the skies always had a little light to them, perhaps from towns or cities that where many miles away, still there was that little bit of light to assist one in finding his way. Not true here, dark was so dark you could never explain it. With no options left I pushed for the rock formation I had seen a few minutes ago.

 

     As I reached the rocks all I could do was feel around and try not to fall or stumble and break something. I move around them slowly and found what seemed like some sort of gap large enough to allow me turn around and even sit down without feeling cramped. And that is exactly what I did; I sat down and leaned back against the rocks, stretched my legs and closed my eyes as I took a moment to relax.

 

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      It was during that moment of relaxing I realized I needed to protect my self if I fell asleep, and sleep was definitely going to happen. I eased my pack off and dug around inside for my clay mores. With the large rocks surrounding me I figured I could crawl out and set them with short wires and if someone followed  the same path I took to get here they would get a chance to visit their friends from earlier today. The rocks would protect me from the blast; this was a good plan until I tried to rig the clay mores. It was dark, man it was dark. I bet I had my face less than two inches away from those damn things as I tried to engage the trip wires. Still it was worth it, at best I could rest in peace thinking I had done all I could do to ensure my safety. On top of this mountain lighting a match or a flash light would most assuredly result in having my ass shot off.

 

     If you were a smoker and decided at night you wanted a cigarette this was the rule. You would take out your rain poncho and drape it over you as you set on the ground. You would then light your cigarette and smoke it under the poncho so no light could be seen. It was very risking and most smokers quickly became daytime users. You only had to hear about the one time some sniper blew the head off of someone who wanted to be a night smoker to get the message.

 

     Sleep at last, a little bite of food, some water and sleep at last.

 

My alarm clock was a simply one, just one blast and you were awake. I wasn’t sure what time it went off but I was sure it was still very dark. I laid there listening for any kind of sound, foot steps, talking anything but the night was silent and the air was filled with the smell of plastic explosive. With my rifle in my lap I laid there not moving just listening to the sound of my own breathing for what seemed like hours. It was probably only minutes but time has a way of passing slowly when you believe death is only a few moments away.

 

     The warmth of the sun was the next thing I remembered as my eyes slowly opened to the light of day. Man I was stiff, everything hurt at the same time. My legs were cramped, my neck was cramped and my arm was killing me. As the memory of my alarm clock came back to me I rolled over onto my stomach and started to make my plan for checking things out. I felt the warm feeling on my arm and knew I had to deal with that first. As quietly as I could I dressed the wound, man it hurt. It was probably best I did not have any morphine; hell if I had took a shot of that it would be the warmth of the sun tomorrow I would be feeling next.

 

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     As I slithered forward I was able to get my first view of the dead zone I had setup with my clay moores. I am not sure what it was that came last night but it looked to be like some sort of four legged critter that was no more. I was thrilled to now know it was not combatants, and as I enjoyed the thought of being free from the hunter and being able to relax I began to wonder who else might had seen the explosion and wondered if they might be headed this away. Once that thought hit me I got to work. Gathering the unused explosive, my pack and rifle I had a quick drink of water and started making my around the mountain top.

 

     This was a good mountain to be on and there were lots of places I could see clearly for long distances and felt comfort in the fact that I could see them before they found me. It was from this vantage point that I spotted several small villages not more than 4 or 5 clicks from me, and the good news was it was down hill. So just less than a few miles and I might be able to get some help, on the other hand if the villages were sympathizers to the Viet Cong I might be able to get myself killed.

 

     I had to do something or I would die here, no one would ever find me. I would be listed as MIA and my family would never know what happened to me. I had to decide, yea barely old enough to go to college and I had to decide how to stay alive in some jungle that I knew nothing about.

 

     As I pondered my decision Sergeant Webb came to mind. Sergeant Webb was one of my drill instructors in boot camp. I remember after the first few days I hated that man. I wanted to kill him so bad it hurt. He pushed us to the end every day of the first three weeks. No rest, not much food only blistered feet from running mile after mile day after day, God I hated that man. After graduation from boot camp my next stage of training was bits or Basic Infantry Training. It was there during those first few days and the DI’s tried to push us to the point of breaking that I realized I was in love in Sergeant Webb. Because of him no matter what they dished out I was mentally and physically ready and I was proud to be able to go the extra mile to help those who were not.

 

     My decision was made I would move within range of the first village, watch and listen and if it did not feel right I would move to the other village which from here looked liked it was only a few clicks farther than Hell Station # 1.