A War Too Far

by David Lee Corley

  “We’ll have a fighter escort up to the border. After that, we’ll be on our own. We’re going to fly low and fast through the mountains. Any of your boys ain’t used to rough flying might wanna bring a barf bag just in case. I’d hate to see your boots get wet.”

  “I assure you, my men are quite used to… rough flying.”

  “Suit yourselves.”

  Granier walked back over and set seven open bottles of beer down on the table. He pushed one toward McGoon like it was special. “You won’t mind switching, would ya?” said McGoon. “I ain’t fond of spit.”

  Granier switched bottles with McGoon and took a sip. McGoon took a big swig from his bottle. Granier kept a straight face as he glanced over at McGoon. “Ah, shit,” said McGoon taking a second look at his bottle then setting it on the table like it had cooties. Granier offered a faint smile while everyone else laughed, including McGoon. McGoon could dish it out, but he could also take it. The package, as McGoon had called them, was the OSS Deer Team.

  It was early morning. Patches of fog hung over the emerald valleys of the northern highlands of Vietnam. The long shadow of an aircraft swept across a thick canopy of trees. The American DC-3 disguised as a Japanese L2D Showa hugged the ridgelines.

  It was a rollercoaster ride for the Deer Team members riding in back. Their faces and hands were painted with black and green greasepaint that promised to stay on even when wet. Everyone but Granier looked queasy. Granier thought about the first time he took part in a battle. It was on Guadalcanal…

  It rained. Granier moved through a grove of coconut trees at the head of his Marine recon platoon. He was on point. Heavy clouds and a storm had masked the Marine’s arrival on the island and caught the Japanese army off guard. The Marines landed on the beach with little resistance, then pushed inland. No Japanese in sight. Only hastily abandoned camps. The Japanese had gone to ground, and it was the job of Marine Recon to find them. The probability of ambush and boobytraps was high. Granier was careful where he stepped. His eyes darted around, taking everything in, searching for danger.

  At night, the Japanese and American navies slugged it out offshore as the Marines watched. Big guns were firing. Explosions that lit up the night sky. It was hard to tell who won, until the next morning when the American fleet was gone. The Marines were on their own with most of their ammunition and supplies at the bottom of the ocean. “Too little. Too Late. Too bad. Welcome to the war, Pups,” said the platoon’s staff sergeant. “Time to nut up and show the Japs who we really are. Can’t stop a Marine. Can’t stop the Corp.”

  The sergeant was a relic from World War I. He fought in the trenches during the Battle of Belleau Wood. It was nasty and gut-wrenching warfare even for a Marine. Lessons learned the hard way. Lessons that would keep Granier and the other ‘pups’ alive.

  That’s what Granier was… a pup. A virgin to war. Just about everyone in the platoon was a pup. Veterans like the sergeant were few and far between. The sergeant’s job was to keep Granier and the others alive long enough to learn how to survive. It was the way of the Corp – the old teaching the young.

  Granier would never admit it, but he liked the sergeant. He was tough, and tough was something Granier understood. The only way to stay on the sergeant’s good side was always to pay attention and not fuck up. The sergeant expected his men to make mistakes, but he didn’t coddle them when they happened. Any mistake got a marine the sergeant’s boot up his ass accompanied by soul-crushing criticism. This was war. There were no second chances on the battlefield.

  From the beginning, the sergeant could see that Granier didn’t like authority and was a loner. Granier had been a hardship case. As a teenager, he had joined a street gang and got caught stealing a car. The judge gave him a choice – jail or the Corp. The sergeant didn’t like anybody that didn’t come to the Marines by their own free will. But Granier had been a good marine and paid attention, unlike some of the others. Still, the sergeant kept an eye on him and waited for him to mess up so he could bust him out. The sergeant knew that the Corp required marines to work as one unit. It wasn’t for loners. The way he saw it, he’d be doing Granier a favor.

  When the platoon made camp on the third night, the sergeant had assigned Granier to share a foxhole with Taylor – the platoon screw up. Every platoon had one – a guy that was clumsy, stupid, or unlucky. Taylor was all three. Granier could see that Taylor was not long for this world and tried to keep his distance whenever possible. But the sergeant, in his wisdom, had made that impossible. They took shifts sleeping while the other one kept watch. Even though he was tired, Granier slept lightly. He didn’t trust Taylor to stay awake during his watch. Their foxhole was on the left flank of the platoon’s position. It was vulnerable. The only good news was that they hadn’t seen any Japanese troops since they arrived, and Granier was hopeful that it might stay that way.

  Granier was asleep when he heard his name whispered. It was Taylor trying to wake him up. “What?” said Granier, pissed.

  “I think I see something,” said Taylor.

  “Like what?”

  “Something in the trees.”

  Granier was going to tell him it was probably the wind when he thought for a moment… He didn’t trust Taylor to know what he saw. Granier climbed over to the edge of the foxhole and looked out. The clouds covered the moon, and it was pitch black. Everything was still. The wind, he thought. Then something moved. He wasn’t sure what it was. Then he saw something else move. “Did you see it?” said Taylor.

  “Shut the fuck up,” said Granier, squinting, trying to get a better look. He watched as an entire company of Japanese soldiers emerged from the jungle and trotted towards the platoon’s position. Granier reacted, picking up his rifle and firing. He didn’t care if he hit anything. He just wanted to make enough noise to wake up the other members of the platoon and alert them to the oncoming danger. It worked. The platoon joined the battle, first a few shots, then a cacophony of rifles and machineguns. The Japanese yelled a battle cry and broke into a run. Japanese mortar shells added to the chaos as they dropped on the American positions with blinding flashes of light, torrents of dirt and deadly shrapnel.

  The sergeant ran over and dove into the foxhole. Taylor and Granier were firing and reloading as fast as they could. “Granier, you keep a good eye on that flank. They’ll be coming that way sure as shit,” said the sergeant.

  “Got it,” said Granier.

  A clump of Japanese emerged from the trees on the flank just as the sergeant had said they would. “Here they come,” said Granier firing at them.

  Taylor looked over and panicked. He grabbed a grenade from a pouch on his belt and pulled the pin. He started to throw it when it slipped from his hand and landed in the foxhole next to Granier. Granier froze for no more than a second, but it was enough for the sergeant to realize that there wasn’t time to pick the grenade and throw it clear. “Taylor, you sorry sack of shit,” said the sergeant as he dove on top of the grenade.

  The explosion pushed the sergeant three feet into the air as his body absorbed the concussion. He landed face down with a heavy thud. He had saved both Granier and Taylor. Granier fired the rest of his ammunition at the Japanese, killing two and driving the rest to the ground. “Keep firing,” said Granier to Taylor. “I’m gonna check on the sergeant.”

  Taylor obeyed. Granier carefully turned the sergeant over. His stomach was gone, a smoking cavity of charred flesh. To Granier’s surprise, the sergeant was still alive. “I knew that dumb bastard was gonna kill someone. Just didn’t think it’d be me,” said the sergeant as he went limp and died.

  The sergeant’s sacrifice wasn’t lost on Granier. He had died saving the members of his pack – the Marine Corp. Granier picked up his rifle, reloaded and fired. There was no time to grieve, only time to fight and survive. His sergeant would have been proud if he had lived.

  When the battle was over, Granier thought about killing Taylor. He didn’t need a judge or
jury to know that Taylor was a danger to the platoon. Granier would protect the others in his unit even if it meant killing one of their own. He decided that he didn’t need to do anything. Taylor would be killed sooner rather than later. He was too much of a screw up to survive. He just needed to stay out of Taylor’s way and let him self-destruct at a safe distance. He was right. A few days later, Taylor got run over by a Sherman tank. The pack was safe again.

  Granier snapped back to reality. They would be jumping soon, and he needed to be ready to move with his gear when the command came. Granier’s rifle, a Springfield M1C Garand with scope mount and muzzle flash suppressor, was tucked carefully away in a padded carrying case leaning against his leg. The weapon was a semi-automatic sniper rifle that carried eight .30-06 rounds in an internal magazine. The wooden stock had a leather cheekpiece to help the shooter’s eye align properly with the side-mounted scope. Granier’s M81 scope was wrapped in a towel and placed in the very center of his leg bag to keep it from being damaged on landing. His life and the lives of the other team members would depend on that rifle and scope more than once in the months that followed. Once he was in the field, Granier never let it out of his sight.

  Dewey had handpicked his team. Each member was an expert in his assigned combat role and had previously distinguished himself in battle. Although they had trained together, this was their first mission as a team. Dewey was confident they were the best men available for the job at hand. The success of their mission depended on it.

  Dewey, his face and hands also camouflaged, stood by McGoon, seated in the pilot’s seat. Smitty was in the co-pilot’s seat and flying the aircraft while McGoon talked with Dewey. “The supply drop zone is just over the next ridge. The drop is one week from today at oh nine hundred. Don’t forget to pop smoke when you hear our engines or we won’t know where you are,” said McGoon.

  “What if the enemy sees the smoke?” said Dewey.

  “You can do what you want, but you’re gonna have a helluva time finding your supplies in that jungle.”

  “Alright. We’ll take the risk and pop smoke if the area looks clear. Otherwise, just drop it, and we’ll do our best to find it.”

  “Okay. There’s the supply drop zone,” said McGoon pointing out the windshield. “We’re five minutes out from your team’s drop zone. You’d better get your guys up and ready. Good luck. Beer’s on me when you make it out.”

  “Thanks,” said Dewey heading out the cockpit door.

  The Deer Team jumped from the DC-3 as it passed over the drop zone. Granier, the most experienced woodsman, was the first out the side door. He kicked out his leg bag and jumped. The static line snapped tight and opened his parachute. He disliked using static lines. He preferred to open his chute. A static line was just one more thing that could go wrong. He could get tangled in it and dragged behind the aircraft. It could get snagged and fail to open his chute. The team was jumping low at eight hundred feet. There was no room for error. He liked simplicity.

  Dewey had insisted on static lines to keep the team close together as they descended. Granier didn’t think much of Dewey, but he obeyed his commander. There was little question that Granier was the real alpha dog of the team – the one nobody wanted to mess with – but Dewey had the rank. Granier had learned to respect rank. He had learned to obey. Unlike the other team members, Granier’s concept of loyalty and patriotism did not go much beyond the squad level. He believed in the men that fought by his side and protected him. They were his pack. He would sacrifice for them, not for some obscure concept of country or honor.

  The rest of the team jumped and followed Granier down into the forest. It was going to be a rough landing. There wasn’t much choice. There were no meadows in this part of the forest — just trees.

  Granier crashed through the top of the canopy. His legs, crotch, and arms broke twigs and small branches as he continued his downward plunge. His chute snarled in the foliage and brought him to an abrupt stop. Still twenty-five feet from the ground, he dangled like a puppet without a master. The other team members crashed through the trees with yelps and grunts, but he couldn’t see them. He released the leg strap holding his pack and rifle. They landed with a thud. Releasing the snap hooks around his legs put his full weight on his chest harness. He pulled the chest straps together, but the hook wouldn’t release; there was too much pressure. He pulled his knife. Once he cut the chest strap, if either arm snarled in the straps, he could dislocate a shoulder. And then there was the knife. It was razor-sharp and could also get hung up as he slipped out of the harness. He decided to toss the knife clear once he cut the harness and hope he could find it on the ground. Once the plan was clear in his mind, there was nothing to be gained by thinking any more about the situation. It was a long drop, and the landing was going to hurt. He executed. A swift stroke of the knife cut the chest strap. He was free. He tossed the knife away as he slipped out of the harness and fell clean.

  He bent his legs at the knees and relaxed. He hit the ground and tumbled with a grunt. He rose to his feet and searched for his knife. It was sticking hilt up a few yards away, the blade embedded in the soft soil. Stuck it, he thought. He was relieved. It was a good knife, and he would need it. He retrieved it and gave both sides of the blade a quick swipe on his pants to clean off the soil before sliding it back in its sheath.

  He could hear the other team members struggling to free themselves. Helping them was not his problem at the moment. They can take care of themselves, he thought. He squatted next to his leg bag, released the strap from his rifle bag, and inspected his rifle. He slid the bolt open and released it to ensure the slide was functioning properly. It was. He checked the trigger and the hard sights. Everything looked okay. He pulled a clip from the ammunition belt on his waist and inspected the bullets to ensure they were still properly aligned in the clip and gave them two taps on his helmet. He opened the bolt again, locking it back. He pushed the bolt lever back with the side of his hand as he pushed the clip through the open bolt and into the internal magazine. Releasing the bolt chambered the first round. He was armed and ready.

  He leveled his rifle at the surrounding trees. As the first team member on the ground, it was his responsibility to provide security for the others still attempting to free themselves from their harnesses stuck in the canopy. His eyes searched the horizon surrounding the drop zone. No movement except for the leaves and twigs that fell from above. It was clear. He made another sweep looking in the surrounding trees for possible snipers. Again, clear. The tropical forest smelled like rotting vegetation, a bit sweet with a lot of sour.

  He wanted to check his rifle scope to make sure it wasn’t damaged. It bothered him not knowing if all his gear was working properly, but he knew there would be time for that later, once the team was safe. He didn’t need his scope in the forest. His sightline was only fifty to a hundred feet out. He could shoot that distance accurately with his weapon’s fixed sights. The scope was for distance. He counted the thuds and grunts of the team members falling to the ground. “Buck, you okay?” said Dewey in a hushed voice.

  “Yes,” said Granier. It was the shortest answer he could think of. His eyes never left the tree line. He kept searching for the enemy. Granier didn’t waste any effort in communicating. He knew his part of the mission. He didn’t need to discuss it or be reminded. He just executed. Consistently. Constantly.

  His lack of comradery pissed off the others in the team who thought him an overzealous perfectionist and a loner. He didn’t care. It wasn’t his job to make them happy. He protected them from the enemy. He kept the pack safe. That was all that matter.

  Granier was born in France in an academic community just outside of Paris where his mother was a professor of history at a well-known university. As a child, his grandfather had taught him survival skills while hunting boar and deer in the woods. At the age of twelve, he and his family moved to Willington, Delaware, when his father, a chemical engineer, was recruited by DuPont to deve
lop advanced polymers. Even though he and his family became American citizens, Granier never quite fit in as a teenager and spent most of his free time hunting deer and turkey alone in the nearby forests and hills. French was his first language, but he also was fluent in English, and Spanish.

  “Buck, check our perimeter,” said Dewey.

  “On it,” said Granier rising, disappearing into the trees, eyes searching.

  There was little sunlight beneath the canopy. Shafts of light alternating with the darkness of the forest. The eyes played tricks. Saw things that weren’t there. He had learned to distinguish the real from the imagined. He stopped fifty yards out and made a large counter-clockwise circle around the team members. His eyes flicked to the ground to check for tripwires and signs of an enemy, then back to the horizon, then up into the trees and back to the horizon. Always moving. Avoiding dry leaves and twigs in his path. Deadly quiet. His rifle leveled, swinging smoothly from side to side. Hunting. His mind drifted, and he remembered…

  The same flickering of sunlight as a boy walked through the trees with his grandfather. It was his first boar hunt. He was ten. He carried a Lebel Model 1886 rifle that his grandfather had given him to use. It fired 8mm bullets which were not particularly large compared to more modern rifles. The gun still kicked like a mule. He had been allowed three practice shots so he could get used to the weight and using the bolt action. It was too big for a boy that had not yet had his teenage growth spurt, but his grandfather had insisted, saying, “When hunting boar, it is better to go in heavy rather than light. Light can get you gored by a tusk, and your mother would never let me hear the end of it.”

  His grandfather did not carry a rifle. It was the boy’s task to kill the beast, not his. Instead, he carried a pair of flintlock dueling pistols loaded with .56 caliber lead balls. “A good hunter only needs one shot to kill his prey,” explained the old man.