Alternate Generals III

Your foot comes up, moves forward, comes down, toes and ball of the foot first. Weight is put on very slowly, and if, God forbid, there should be any movement, you're ready to leap back and go flat before that mine can detonate.

Slowly you put your full weight down, eyes moving back and forth.

If you see, hear, sense nothing, you lift your other foot, and bring it forward, taking another step, making sure you didn't drag any brush with you that could leave marks.

Behind you was your slack man, watching for something you might miss. Sometimes he carried a grenade launcher, loaded with antiperso

You couldn't walk point very long, so you'd rotate back, to slack, and the march would continue.

Of course, you never, ever used a road, a human trail, or used machetes to cut your way along. All of those were deathtraps for the inexperienced or lazy.

We moved fairly quickly, about a kilometer an hour, using animal trails when we could.

At the end of the column, behind my reaction force, were the tailgu

Grunts learned to move quietly enough, in small enough units, to occasionally surprise the enemy.

Special Forces prided themselves on being able to move so quietly they surprised monkeys.

Our column moved under a bird dozing on a limb, that didn't wake up with a squawk until half a dozen troopers had gone by.

One problem we had was the number of men on the operation. Fifty, as infantrymen had discovered, was enough to get in big trouble if a decent-sized enemy force, a company or stronger, discovered you. Conversely, it's hard for fifty to move through the jungle without being discovered.

But that was the only option Bull Simons thought was possible.

As we moved, we passed a low knoll. It was pointed out, and that would be our RV… where, if we were hit at our RON-remain overnight-position, we'd try to reform.

We moved on.

In deep jungle and high mountains, day vanishes in an instant. The sun was just starting to vanish when word came down the column, pointing left, to where a hill rose. We went on about another few hundred meters, then arced back.

We took positions, by teams, on that hill. We'd bypassed it initially to make sure we weren't being followed.

We weren't, and so we found fighting positions, in teams around the hill.

My team laid out its immediate reaction drill, in case we were hit during the night, and put out claymore mines. These were small wedge-shaped chunks of plastic that could be either command-detonated, as were ours, or set with trip wires to blast some six hundred steel pellets straight out when tripped. It was stamped front toward enemy, just in case it had been issued to an utter dummy.

A troop found me, just as I was contemplating my rice, about to make di

I followed him to just below the hillcrest, where Simons had set up his command post.

Simons told me, and the other team leaders, what he wanted, in his grating whisper, which I swear carried as far as the average drill sergeant's bellow.

The next day, after midday meal, my reaction force was to take point. Simons thought we'd reach the approximately north-south road that led to the caves about that time, cross it somewhere below the hamlet of Ha Quang, and then, when we reached a tiny river about a klick beyond, turn north to the caves.

When we closed on the caves, Simons's attack element would flank us to the east, and then strike the caves as we found targets.

If they were able to «seize» Ho Chi Minh, or any other of the Communist hierarchy, they'd fall back through us, I'd engage whatever Viet forces were in pursuit, then break contact and we'd take that disused road until things felt dangerous, then move into the jungle back toward our DZ.

It sounded nice, simple, and workable.

But it didn't work out that way.

It almost never does in combat.

Simons had just finished when one of his radiomen slithered over.

"Sunrise Control, sir."

Simons took the handpiece, listened.

"Sunrise Six, this is Sunrise Control," the ti

Simons used squelch code, clicking his handset button twice. That meant "Received, over." Three would have meant "In contact, shut up, they're close."

"Sunrise Control, out."

Neat and clean, the way things are supposed to be.

It was getting dark when I found my way back to my position.

I unhooked my harness, put on mosquito lotion, wistfully thought of being able to take off my boots, and set my M16 in front of me.

Then I mixed my Minute rice with water in the pouch, opened a can of something by feel, dumped it in the rice. I dosed everything with Tabasco, unquestionably one of the few secret weapons the US had in that war.

It turned out to be the famous mystery meat.

Men who'd gone through the Royal Tracking School in Malaysia swore it was orangutan. But there weren't any of the big apes in Vietnam.

Others said it was local monkey.

Cynics thought it was the infamous "monkey meat" the Foreign Legion ate in the 50s that some cost-conscious quartermaster had gotten his hands on.

I knew it wasn't water buffalo, since I ate that fairly regularly.

Gourmets had no place in the Green Berets.

I ate without thinking about what I was doing, leaned back against my pack, and went to sleep.

My team was within hand's reach of me.

Simons, feeling confident, had ordered only a one-third alert, which gave everyone a good night's sleep, off and on.

I stood last watch, together with Staff Sergeant Jenkins. Before dawn, we tapped everyone awake, took quiet shits if we had to, packed anything we'd taken out of our rucks, ate more rice and whatever, brushed our teeth, and were ready to rock and roll.

By daylight, we were moving off the hill.

Simons's estimate was right. Around midday, we reached the north-south road. It was a little too well tended to make anyone happy. Point elements went across, then everyone went down and tried to think like a bush, as a squealing noise and rumble approached.

It was a Russian PT76 tank, with its hatches unbuttoned, but its crew looking very, very alert.

It went on past, and came back fifteen minutes later.

It was just then the thought came: America, like France, had been accused, quite correctly, of taking these «gooks» less than seriously. That was one of the biggest complaints Special Forces had about the regular Army.

Yet here we were, attempting to assassinate a head of state, with nothing more than fifty crazies with machine guns. Would we have tried to kill Stalin, Hitler, de Gaulle with such a pissant force? Of course not. We would've dropped the entire 82nd Airborne in their laps.

Talk about contempt for the enemy…

I forced the thought away. We were too close, too hot, to allow any negatives. And besides, it was far too late.

We crossed the road, then crept north.

The jungle was thick, uncut, and the land was rough, mountainous.

My map said we were close, very very close, when the signal came back down the line: "Richardson up."

I moved past my crouched men to the Montagnards, who were on line along a ridge crest.

Babysan Davidson beckoned to me, and I slid up beside him.

He pointed, and I used a bush to peer downslope.

Below me were the caves.

And what looked like the entire Vietnamese Communist party leadership.

Here and there were the entrances to the caves. Hidden under trees or carefully camouflaged were low huts. The grounds were as immaculate as the White House, yet still clearly jungle. No overflight using conventional visuals would have seen anything.