Memory

Memory

         It was a crisp sunny day in October. The leaves began to fall, and the wind brought the smell of winter. An elderly man was walking down the street with his dog, his name was Erik Daniels. Erik has walked this path for many, many years with his old yet refined dog. Erik always enjoyed watching the kids play, the sound of their laughter, but only this time they weren’t laughing, they were making gun noises and yelling die, die, die at each other. A tear ran down Erik’s face, he had never had emotional break like this since he has been out of the clinic, when all of a sudden there was an explosion of some sort and it all went black for Erik... 

         “Lt,” whispered Private Richie, “there coming! There coming sir what do we do?” Lieutenant Erik Daniels woke to a black sky, with what look to be stars with parachutes falling to Earth. He has only been in country for a week, but has inherited command of the company because their last commanding officer was killed by a sniper. Lt. Daniels placed the steel “pot” helmet on his head, grabbed the mud covered rifle and began to crawl forward to Pvt. Richie. “What do you mean their coming?” said Lt. Daniels, “the VC, sir there coming!” Pvt. Richie said. As the Lt. crawled a little farther to peer over the sand bag, another flare went up, lighting the sky, and a forest floor that appeared to be moving. It was the North Vietcong Army, and they had surrounded the hill top that Lt. Daniels’ company out post was stationed on.

         Lieutenant Daniels was a man who kept to himself. He was a reader, and a scholar. After college his father kicked him out of the house and the only option was to enlist. Everywhere he would go Lt. Daniels would get stared at by the men, and they would whisper behind his back. They whispered about how young he looked, how small he was, they would whisper about how he would run if they ever got into a real big battle. The men did not trust him. Here were men that wouldn’t shave or shower for weeks on end, and all of a sudden new officer comes along, who can’t even grow peach fuzz. The harsh sun, heat, and rain were hard on Erik’s frail body, but he would have to over come it. Day in day out whisper after whispers from the men, orders that would not be followed by the men, Daniels just ignored it. “Soon, they will stop he thought.” Soon was correct. That day came when Lt. Daniels’ company was ordered to gear up and move out north to a valley on the border. The place was a hill 30 clicks from the Cambodian border; it was a small hill top made completely out of red sand, with holes and tunnels carved into the ground, foxholes and trenches. A few buildings stood, burnt out, but still standing, more sand. Sand, sand, sand, one of the men compared the hill to “hell”, and that the red color came from the men who last had held this post. “This post is vital,” said Lt. Daniels to his men, “We are within a rocks throw of the Ho Chi Minh trail. The plan is that this post will become an artillery base, which will launch attacks onto the trail.” This hill was in the eye of the hurricane, so far out in the bush that everything had to be heiloed in. As a solider raised the flag, the last heilo took off, sending that distinctive red sand into the air. Now on their own, here they would make a stand.

.           “This is it, this is the end,” Lt. Daniels said to himself, “I’ll never get home to see my family, to say I’m sorry to my father” he continued to think to himself. “Sir what should we do?” asked Pvt. Richie. Pvt. Richie was one of the marines that would often talk about Lt. Daniels behind his back, the lack of distrust between the two men was well known. The private a few days prior told Daniels to, “Go to hell… Sir”. It was a shock that he of all people would ask Lt. Daniels, a green horn for advice. After shuddering a few time Daniels yelled with a defiant voice, “Lock and load men, shoot only at what you can hit, save the ammo, radio men report to the command post now!” Lt. Daniels gave the order of a life time, dig in. With that, red sand began to fly as the marines dug into mother Earth for protection. More sand bags went up, more holes were made, the cooling sand felt good on the men as they sweat. Protection was key; some holes were almost six feet deep, all the more safer. One marine joked to another, “Hey at least our journey to hell won’t be that far.” Joking aside, they continued to quickly dig, the enemy will not wait to attack. All the marines on the outpost knew now that their new Lt meant business and that their bad mouthing him may have been a mistake. He knew what he was talking about, all the machine gun and defensive positions he ordered to be made, now made sense. The interlocking fields of fire will work to the advantage of the marines. Ammo began to pile up, and zero hour had come. Throughout the hill top came the sounds of assault rifles being loaded, the clicking and clinging of the 7.62 mm rounds entering the chamber, and the lone Marine saying what could be his last prayers in the corner of a fox hole filled the air. It was time. 

         The stillness of night came in; the only thing in the sky was the stars, a peaceful lull before the hurricane that would be coming. At the command post (CP) Lt. Daniels had the radios call all platoons and asked them of there status, and then out in the forest, a whistle blow broke the silence. War calls, and shrill cries of men, the enemy, rang out as they charged up the hill towards Lt. Daniels and his men. The heavy thumping of the M-60 machine guns mowing down the enemy like water breaking on rocks gave Lt. Daniels a sigh in relief. No longer was he only listening to the whisper of his men. “Eastern Trench to Command post, heavy fighting, multiple enemy forces engaged, request reinforcements.” “Eastern Trench, negative on reinforcement, this maybe a probe, and we need to keep a 360 degree perimeter. Artillery is on request.” Lt. Daniels radioed. Men were dying under the Lieutenants command; even though they didn’t quite get along, it made him sick to think that he could do nothing to help them. “Where is that God damn artillery? Our boys are getting killed out there!” Lt. Daniels yelled in at the command post. Everyone heard him, even over the roar of the gunfire, and the sound of empty shells hitting the ground, a silence in the little shack of a command post ensued. Again the silence was broken by the radio, every platoon on the perimeter was radioing that they were getting hit by heavy opposition. “Command post Alpha from Almighty,” the radio squawked, almighty, aka, the military control center in Saigon, the place where if you’re in trouble you call them for help. Almighty had at its disposal all military logistics from getting a toilet paper roll, to getting the big daddy of bombs dropped were you need it. Lt. Daniels picked up the handset, keyed up, and said “Almighty, Almighty, this is Command post Alpha, we have multiple contacts, we are surrounded; we need air support and anything that you can send us.” The channel went silent, after seconds of silence and waiting the radio crackled. “Almighty has received, all available aircraft are being diverted to your location. Artillery bases are on stand by for coordinates, Command Post Alpha has priority.” Almighty cleared the channel. A small battle was won, help was on the way, but there was still a lot that needed to be done and Lt. Daniels and his men were not looking good.   

         Lt. Daniels grabbed his rifle, which he had never fired in anger, grabbed a portable radio, and headed out into the battle. Keeping low and moving quick as to not be left in the open where a man can get shot, he made his way to the trenches. Flares continued to float down to earth like nothing was wrong, but dirt on the ground was flying up in lines where bullets were hitting. Sweaty, tired, and scared Lt. Daniels slowly raised his head to find the enemy, the bullets zinged and snapped past his head, the ground shook from enemy mortars, the screams of the dying and wounded came from all directions, “Medic, medic, o god please medic.” Just as he could see the tree line, bang, the Lt. was knocked back. As his aids rushed to his side they thought it was the end, the man that they had come to admire in so few hours could be dead. “Is he dead?” one of them said. “No the bullet hit his helmet, thank god. Sir we don’t know what we would do with out you.” said the other aid, helping Lt. Daniels to a crouched position. Daniels was shocked, he  looked at his aids then his helmet. Where the rank use to be on the helmet was a little hole, and in the back of the helmet was a gaping hole. Anger filled Lt. Daniels veins, “Lets get these bastards.” A new sound was heard, jet engines. “Commanding officer of CP Alpha, this is Commanding Officer McCain, fighter bomber squadron Bravo; we are carrying napalm, and cluster bombs, where you want it.” Commander McCain radioed, as he and his squadron circled over head in their F-4 Phantoms, navy bomber/fighter jets, at a safe high altitude. The forest floor looked as if it was a moving carpet of little lights, Vietcong moving around with torches. “Squadron Bravo, this is Maine Lieutenant Erik Daniels, I need snake and nape on the tree line just south of our position, lay it in east to west, I need that tree line a wall of flames, over.” “Received, starting our runs now, get low in the holes.” Comm. McCain radioed. Through the morning haze, the sunlight started to push out the night, and on the horizon four small dots moving with speed came out of the east. A roar of afterburners, then an intense flash of heat, and light, the smell of gasoline, and burnt flesh filled the air. What looked like flames running around was the enemy on fire. Screams reached Lt. Daniels ears. “Great run Bravo Squadron, circle for further assignment.” Radioed a confident new man, the Lt had. struck and killed the enemy, and saved his men, for now.

         Nearing the sixth hour of this engagement, the fighting had become patchy, ammo was running low, the marines had to scavenge off there buddies, their fallen comrades; they had to search through the mangled, bloody limbs to find magazines full of ammo. After finding the ammo they would have to wash out the blood because the bullets would jam in the rifles. Down to a pistol, half his men dead, Lt. Erik Daniels made a critical judgment call, Broken Arrow. A broken arrow, if called stops the whole war, it means that an American outpost was about to be overrun, all aircraft, ground troops, sea batteries, everything is to be trained on this position. The American flag which stood so proudly during the fighting, now flew upside down. An international sign of distress.  In a few minutes planes from aircraft carriers and land bases, were flying in patterns above. Pvt. Richie was in charge of coordinating the attack runs. Almighty was sending in a flight of hueys to extract the survivors. “Sergeant Massamillo to who ever the hell is in command at post Alpha, we need a landing zone cleared, it’s too hot to land our birds; the L-Z has to be cleared.” The whooping sound of the Hueys blades echoed in the air, random gun shots broke out. Lt. Daniels and his men were in a small pocket, and they had maybe 40 rounds between them all. “Fix bayonets!” yelled Lt. Daniels; the look on the men’s faces was unforgettable, fear, anger, and sorrow. The company chaplain came around, “Through we walk through the valley of death I shall fear no evil…” after a minute the chaplain finished his blessing, and walked over to Lt. Daniels. “Father your going to need this,” as Lt. Daniels handed the Chaplain a Colt .45 1911, “No my son, I will fight with the word of god against these little yellow devils.”

“Take it father; these bastards don’t take prisoners in hell.” Lt. Daniels said, as he walked away. Turning to his men all huddled together, some with tears, some staring out into nothing. “Men, we clear this area at all cost, we do this and we go home,” Lt. Daniels turned around, “CHARGE!”

         Out of the little Command post charged a handful of men, the enemy was waiting. Just as the night before when the enemy charged the command post and the machine guns mowed them down, here was the opposite. Marine after Marine fell in a whirlwind of steel, and fire. But they continued to run. Lt. Daniels ran firing his pistol until it was empty. Lt Daniels and his men made it to the trench system that was once their home. The screams of men that were being bayoneted filled the air. Lt. Daniels observed as Pvt. Richie continued to ram the butt-end of his rifle into the Vietcong soldier who had just shot the private’s friend a moment ago. Upon placing his hand on the private, Lt. Daniels was shocked; Pvt. Richie turned with tears in his eyes, “What have I done sir?” was all the Pvt. could say. Looking into his eyes, through the fog of war, Lt. Daniels said, “You did your job.” A fly over by the choppers woke Lt. Daniels from his haze, “Heilo 864, Sergeant Massamillo, to LZ-Alpha, commencing landing procedures, your coming home boys.”  The first chopper landed and the Marines ran to get on, “Lt., Lt., lets go sir.” yelled one of the Marines. “No. I’ll make sure everyone gets out.” Lieutenant Daniels yelled back. Heilo after heilo landed and dusted off, the men started to disappear, now came the last heilo, Lt. Daniels kept his word, he was the last American out of the fallen base. He hopped in the chopper and the pilot, Sergeant Massamillo, gave him a nod. As they dusted off, Erik started to relax when all of a sudden the door gunner yelled, “RPG RPG! Hold on it’s gonna hit!” “Sergeant Massamillo, to almighty we’re hit, tail rudder damage, were going in, were going in hard!” Sergeant Massamillo radioed as he tried to keep the wounded bird steady. The ground came quick, and then blackness ensued.

         “Sir, sir, can you hear me? Sir your ok, I’m a paramedic your ok. You fell and hit your head while you were walking the dog. We’re taking you to the hospital.” Erik heard as a hazy glow from the ambulance’s lights came into view. “Where am I?” said Erik, to the paramedic. “You’re in my ambulance and you’re safe,” said the paramedic. The gash above Erik’s left eye said a lot, but that wasn’t what caught the medic’s attention. Being unconscious the medic had to asses Erik’s condition, and upon removing his shirt, the medic saw electrical burn scars on his back, and a tattoo that said “Never look back,” under the POW/MIA flag.