Men in Green Faces

by Gene Wentz; B. Abell Jurus

  Gene’s heart pounded so hard, he feared they might hear it. Go away, he thought. Go…get up…go. The squad had to hit their target before sunrise or they’d miss the objective, and all they’d been through would be for nothing. Suddenly one of the NVA stood, turned toward the brush he and Cruz were hiding in, unzipped his fly, and urinated.

  Gene, listening to—and seeing—the stream just to the right of his shoulder, and just to the left of Cruz’s, never moved. And he knew Cruz wouldn’t either. Better to get pissed on than give their positions away. Dumb ass…could reach up and zip his fly for him…yell, Boo! He’d jump ten feet, probably shit his pants. Funny…He clamped down on the thought before the urge to laugh, or the more powerful urge to kill, took deadly hold.

  There was silence, then the metallic noise of the zipper came again, loud and unnatural. Another reason why SEALs wore Levi’s 501s. They buttoned. He didn’t dare look at Cruz.

  Minutes passed. The sound of rain came. The sound always came first, as drops hit the treetops high above. Then the rain would start coming downward, from one level to the next. Before it hit ground level, the six-man NVA patrol moved out. From their gestures, talk, and the way they looked upward, it was obvious they didn’t like the rain much.

  Gene smiled with grim satisfaction. Rain was welcome. It would cover their tracks and any sound they might make en route to the target. Too bad it had already been too dark to make out any markings on the NVA uniforms. Any insignia seen would have been used to determine exactly which enemy force the six men were with, later, back at NILO.

  After ten minutes, Jim again tapped the top of his head with his left hand, asking for a head count. Moments later he had it. By then the rain was a downpour. They headed for the target with great speed, but with all senses on full alert, responding to every sound. Each and every noise had to be analyzed, distinguished from natural sound. They’d run into one patrol already. The fear of running into another worked on everybody’s nerves.

  Jim’s fist went up to stop the patrol about an hour before dawn. He moved it in the circular motion that indicated the location would be a rally point. If any enemy contact were made from then on, or if they had to split up for any reason, they would rally back to this location to reunite.

  Gene waited as Jim motioned each man to him, and silently pointed them into a location, to form a security perimeter. That done, Jim and Brian moved out alone. They returned a good ten minutes later. One by one, Jim went to each man. When he reached Gene, he told him the squad had reached their objective, the enemy camp.

  “When I give the move-out sign,” Jim whispered, “the patrol will break into two separate groups.”

  Gene nodded, listening intently. The first group was composed of Brian, Jim, and Roland. They were the hammer. He, Cruz, Alex, and Doc were the anvil. Nice, thought Gene. Very nice.

  Jim waved his arm, and the men headed out to take their positions. Rain covering their movements, Jim, Brian, and Roland crept closer to the front of the camp’s five hootches.

  The small structures had a framework constructed of poles. Their walls and peaked roofs were a thatch of reeds, palm fronds, grasses, and mud. Dirt-floored, each hootch measured about eight by ten feet.

  Gene, Cruz, Alex, and Doc began moving to the east, skirting around the small clearing surrounding the hootches, to come up behind them. They had five minutes to get to the rear without being detected, and to locate a safe position from the frontal attack Jim’s group would initiate.

  Jim, Brian, and Roland would be firing straight into Gene’s group’s position. Their rounds would sizzle through the hootch walls like they weren’t even there. The NVA, splitting out the back and heading toward the brush as soon as the first few shots were fired, would never know they were running directly into Gene’s group, and the sure death he ached to give them.

  It seemed like it took a long time to reach the east side. Once there, Gene used the last few minutes—before Jim, Brian, and Roland brought the hammer down in a frontal attack—to place Alex, Cruz, and Doc into position. He then signaled them to get down low. Their lives depended on Jim’s group keeping their fire above the three-foot level.

  Blood rushing, heart pounding, Gene waited, his finger on the 60’s trigger. The quiet and the dark, within the steady rain, seemed to grow even quieter and darker. He faced the dead space—the open area about twenty meters from the back side of the hootches to where they hid inside the jungle’s edge. Cruz, Alex, and Doc were hunched, black shapes within the shadowy foliage near him. They looked like long-forgotten statues from an ancient, rotting temple.

  Suddenly the night blew apart. Weapons on fully automatic poured hundreds of rounds into and through the hootches, and into their position just above their heads. The rounds cracked going overhead. Small branches, twigs, leaves, showered down. Gene sucked in his breath. Not only had Jim and his group opened up, they were screaming at the top of their lungs, “Kill them! Alpha squad! Flank right! Bravo! Left!”

  Involuntarily he shivered, but held the 60 steady. Screaming and firing, Jim’s group sounded like thirty to forty men. Not three. And sure enough, here came their targets. Running as fast as they could to reach the safety of the jungle, men boiled out from inside the hootches, splashing through the mud and puddles in the clearing, coming right at them.

  Silently Gene counted. Eighteen meters…fifteen meters…ten meters…Two pop flares lit the night sky up like high noon. The rain fell in glittering lines. Five meters, and coming fast. Jim’s group ceased firing, and Gene knew they’d hit the deck. With only seconds to spare before the fleeing NVA overran their position, Gene, Cruz, Alex, and Doc rose as if from the depths of hell, and cut loose with a devastating barrage of fire.

  With the 60 quaking in his hands, Gene saw the horror on their targets’ faces, even through the sheets of rain, but felt nothing. Coming at a dead run toward their position, the enemy tried to change direction, but couldn’t get away from the deadly fire of the SEALs’ weapons. The 60 became red-hot. Bodies dropped, jumped, shook like puppets.

  The pop flares started to die out, the darkness to return. It didn’t matter. None stood, now, in the clearing. Gene yelled.

  “Stop firing!”

  In the sudden stillness, smoke rose from glowing red barrels. Gene listened, watched. Jim, Brian, and Roland would be running a very quick search through the hootches. As the Mark 13 flares died, the hootches burst into flame, set afire after the search. Through it all, Gene kept an eye on the fifteen to twenty bodies in the rain-soaked clearing.

  And one moved. A dark figure against the ground, an NVA was slowly crawling to the north, trying to get away. Gene spotted his movement just before the NVA soldier, probably thinking he was home free, stood and started to run across the open fifty-yard stretch to the jungle’s edge.

  “Cruz!” he yelled.

  Bolting from his position, Cruz took off. The NVA had a good head start, with only a few feet more to reach the trees and freedom. Cruz went down on one knee, took aim with his XM-203, and fired one round of explosives.

  At jungle’s edge, the 40 Mike-Mike hit the runner, center mass, in the back. Exploding on impact, half the body blew away from the waist up. Gene heard the remains hit the ground with dull thumps. Cruz headed back. Jim, Brian, and Roland, silhouettes against the flaming, smoking hootches to their rear, walked toward them. Gene, Doc, and Alex reloaded, mostly by touch, watching to make sure nobody else came or went.

  Jim circled the squad, then said, “Gene, make sure they’re dead.”

  Gene waved, and Cruz, Doc, and Alex joined him. Together, they moved a few steps closer to the bodies and opened up. While the other three made selected shots, Gene, with cold, clinical detachment, raked the entire area. Bodies jerked with the impact as the stream of rounds swept across and back.

  Gene never let up on the trigger, seeing not the bodies on the ground, but Willie, the little girls, Tong’s wife.

  After the fourth sweep, there was only the patteri
ng sound of the rain.

  The 60 weighed solid in his hands. “Reload.”

  In the sudden silence, they obeyed.

  “You think he’s gone off the deep end?” Cruz whispered.

  Doc shook his head. “He’s responding. No errors.”

  Jim gave the order. “Move out.”

  Under the steady murmur of rain, the SEALs shifted into file formation and stepped back into the jungle. Behind them five hootches burned. Twenty-three NVA lay dead.

  Gene lifted the cover off his watch and glanced at the time. They’d spent eleven minutes at the objective. Successful mission…enemy eliminated. And Jim had the tax collectors’ money.

  They moved quickly, knowing they had to put some distance between themselves and the hootches and bodies. Having had the small patrol pass earlier, they all knew that after hearing the gunfire, enemy forces would be coming in. And, Gene thought, if one patrol was in the area, so were others.

  Jim stopped them after they’d gone about one hundred meters into the jungle. “Guys,” he said, just loud enough to be heard, “remember the R&R Center? Well, stay ready. Keep all noise down. No more voice commands. Brian, get us out of here.”

  Brian moved out fast, ducking and weaving, the squad right behind him. They’d covered nearly five hundred meters before they heard weapons firing.

  It was just like it had been at the R&R Center. Gene listened. The NVA were reconning by firing, hoping that if they came close, the squad would return fire, and they’d get a fix on the SEALs’ location. He jumped a root, almost tripped, slipped through the narrow space between heavy brush and a tree trunk. His eyes stung with rain-mixed sweat. The enemy would come fast, hard, and in large numbers.

  Even under the triple canopy, rain poured down hard. The jungle, dark and wet, stank to high heaven. With each step, he felt like he was being sucked down into centuries of decaying rot.

  Mouth open, drawing in gulps of air, he kept up the pace Brian set. The damned mud. Couldn’t capture them, but sure slowed them down. Picking up each foot, with pounds of it caked on, made his leg muscles ache. It felt as though he had fifteen-pound weights strapped to each ankle.

  “Ambush, front!” Brian yelled as he opened up, fully automatic. Jim, beside Brian before the words were out of his mouth, opened up as well.

  “We’ll flank right,” Gene yelled. “Try to hold them down until we can come on line.” He heard five or six weapons, saw an occasional muzzle flash through the dense brush. “Peel off on three!” he called, and heard them relay his command. Once enemy contact was made, no need for silence. Better, in fact, for everyone to give direction, distance, relay commands. It confused the enemy, left them unsure of what size force they faced.

  Even as he moved, Gene evaluated the situation. Brian and Jim had to hold the enemy down. Within a few seconds, the two would be heading back past the squad. With the squad unable, because of the dense brush, to move on line to gain fire superiority, Brian fired fully automatic. Jim was set on semi-auto, single fire, allowing rounds to be continuous even as Brian changed belts in his Stoner. By the time Brian opened back up, fully auto, Jim would reload so that there would never be a lull in return fire.

  “One, two, three!” Jim yelled.

  On three, Brian poured every round from his Stoner into the enemy position. No one returned fire. “Go!” he shouted, wheeling left to give Jim, himself opened up then to fully auto, a clear shot.

  As Jim fired, Brian ran straight back until he was behind Doc, the last man in the squad. The first thing he’d do back there, Gene knew, was reload, then wait until it was his turn again to open up. The Australian peel-off. They’d fire, then peel off until contact was broken, or they got to an area where they could flank the enemy and sting them to death.

  Gene grabbed Jim as he passed. “I’ve got three hundred rounds hooked up. When I open up, put some distance between us. Take everyone. I’ll level the area, and meet you four hundred meters at eight o’clock.”

  Jim nodded, kept going. Roland yelled, “Go!” and peeled off to the rear.

  Gene opened up with the 60 in rapid three-to-five-round bursts. The clock system was effective in telling everyone where the enemy was or where to head in breaking contact. The patrol’s heading was always twelve o’clock. Jim would take the squad four hundred meters in the direction of the 8 on a clock face to reload, set up, and wait for him.

  The jungle started to fall. Gene saw two white flashes firing back. Standing, he screamed, “Willie!” and bore down on the flashes. Not in bursts. He held the trigger down. Seconds before the belt ran out, the flashes stopped, and there was nothing. No sound. No gunfire.

  He dropped on one knee, broke off another belt from around his chest, and reloaded. He stood, waiting. For the first time, in all the ops, he felt no fear. He wasn’t worried about whether he’d make it. He wanted contact. And then he heard movement.

  Staring into the darkness, he listened for a clue of what was, or what was not, out there. It could be Jim or one of the others come back. God, he hoped not. There! Noise over to the right…about two o’clock. There it was again. He spun and headed out in the direction of eight o’clock.

  Moving through the thick brush, the trees, he watched for signs of the squad. He weaved in and out through the heavy green foliage. The shadows were dark on dark. He felt relaxed, moving easy. Any other time, he would have been scared. Not now.

  After one hundred and fifty meters, he stopped, squatting to listen. Was the noise still there? Was anyone following, thinking he’d lead them to the others? Hearing nothing, he rose and continued, to link up with Jim. He should be getting close now. He had to be careful, had to hear the password. Count it off, he told himself, count the steps…

  He traveled approximately four hundred meters. No one was there. Had they left? Which direction? Where were they? He kept moving.

  “Purple.”

  He froze.

  “Purple.”

  “Haze,” he answered, and men in green faces stood up from their concealed positions, spread left and right before him.

  “Had to say purple twice, Gene,” Jim said. “Anyone following?”

  “No.” Throat dry, he felt the charge of adrenaline receding. He’d heard about the two SEALs before his tour. They hadn’t heard the challenge, hadn’t answered with the password. The rest of the squad had blown them away. Just riddled them. But they’d lived. Only humans he’d heard of who’d survived a SEAL ambush.

  One by one, Jim called over a man at a time to tell them they were changing direction. “Everyone out here knows we have to go south to get out,” he whispered to Gene, as he had to the rest. “We don’t have much ammo left and we still have a long way to go.”

  Gene nodded and stepped back. The sun was starting to rise, but it was still raining.

  When Jim had spoken to everyone, he waved for Brian to move out, and pointed north. They were going farther into enemy territory.

  Gene stepped over rocks. They were headed back, around the objective. Maybe they could get into an open area and call in for an airlift. He walked on, Roland in front of him, Alex behind.

  Suddenly the rain stopped. He glanced up to see beams of sunlight coming through the trees. They seemed to reach out, to stretch, to touch the ground.

  A thousand meters from the point where they’d been hit, things were quiet. Jim signaled to Brian to head east. An hour later, he called for a break. The squad circled, took security positions, and sat, keeping eyes and ears focused outward from the center.

  Gene counted his remaining rounds. He had about a third left, with a long way to go. It was full daylight now, but still dark under the triple canopy, with rain pouring down again and covering their tracks. It was a blessing.

  After the break, still weary, they continued north, farther and farther into enemy territory. They were agreed they’d traveled approximately five miles north of the target.

  Brian’s hand went up. They froze, and stood fast while Jim went for
ward. Brian had stopped just prior to a clearing.

  Gene moved up in response to Jim’s wave. A large village area lay before them, with a lot of enemy. There were fifty to a hundred of them. About sixteen hootches. Training exercises seemed to be going on. In one area, strings of barbed wire were lying on the ground, with men weaving through them. In another, a group of men attacked an unmarked target. Others were flanking another group.

  “An NVA training camp,” Gene whispered.

  Jim and Brian agreed.

  Gene followed them back to the rest of the squad. They moved out to the west. Staying inside the jungle’s edge to remain out of sight, they moved with great speed and caution, sweat pouring down their faces, for the following two and a half hours.

  Finally Roland attempted radio contact. Nothing. Distance and jungle prevented them calling in their Wolves to extract them. They patrolled on.

  Jim snapped his fingers. Brian turned. Jim pointed southwest. The patrol changed direction and followed Brian, who never led them wrong.

  They’d missed their pickup at the extraction point. The boat crew that had been waiting there would have moved back down toward Seafloat by now, Gene thought, as was planned and ordered in the PLO. If the squad hadn’t made it to the extraction point by 0900, the crews would know they’d be coming out at a different location. Soon, though, Seafloat would be sending out air patrols to see if contact could be made, or to see if the squad could be located by air.

  No good, Gene thought. The air patrols wouldn’t even be in the right area, since the squad had changed direction several times. He ducked under draped vines. Twenty-four hours after the planned 0900 pickup time, the boats would return upriver and wait for radio contact, knowing that if the squad was still alive, they’d patrol back to the Son Ku Lon and then head west toward Seafloat.