Tale of Johnny Ray

"Sweet Mary mother of God" SGT Lykes exclaimed as he looked into the barn, after having big Grizz bust off the hasp with an entrenching tool.
An entire wall was lined up with captured U.S. weaponry three rows deep.
Mostly M-16s, but some M-60s as well. Even some M-14s were evident.
What was most alarming however were the stacks of ammunition crates imprinted with Chinese characters. 5.56 and 7.62mm rounds were in abundance.
Stacks of new AK47s were still in the protective wrapping from the factory.
"Geez Louise, looks like somebody's about to get serious" SGT Jones said as he approached the scene and briefed SGT Lykes on the tunnel incident.
SGT Lykes promptly got on the radio to inform headquarters of the situation.

 

A sense of foreboding passed through us like electricity.
While Sgt Lykes was on the horn to HQ trying to get some assistance in here ASAP, SGT Jones began directing the matter at hand.
First priority was to set up listening posts on four sides. We knew they were coming. Just a matter of when and how many.
We went door to door in two man teams rousting the occupants to the clearing by the well, which we took to be the town square.
We searched each hut for tunnel openings and found three more. No gas, this time. We used concussion grenades to collapse and seal the tunnels.
The time for being subtle had passed and now we needed to be proactive.
We collected a total of fourteen civilians from twenty-three huts. Nine were women, all seemed to between fifteen and thirty years of age.
There was another old man, this one missing one of his legs below the knee.
There were four children, too young to fight, possibly the offspring of the women.
The unoccupied huts were nearly bare. Strictly spartan with no homey touches. No indication of family life.

"Gentlemen, listen up" SGT Jones announced. "In case yall ain't figured it out yet, this ain't no #### farm village. What we have here is basically a VC crash pad, complete with entertainment"
"Jonesy's right" SGT Lykes concurred. "And it's been right under our noses all this time. Alright, here's what we're going to do.
It ain't great, but it's all we got. No way in hell they can get enough help out here in time to do us any good.
And we #### sure can't head back the way we came in. We would be toast for sure.
We are going to dig in post haste and establish a perimeter around the village. Just circle the wagons. Get some claymores out there too, but be quick about it, and don't wander out too far.
Your orders are to shoot anything that moves. They gonna be coming in hard and fast when they come.
The old man is getting us some choppers in here.The plan is to blow this joint in place and lift us the hell out of here. OK, let's get to it men."

 

I was wondering what we would do with the civilians. They seemed harmless enough, but I was beyond trusting anything based on appearance.
Who knew what weapons were stashed around here that we missed in our search.
SGT Lykes was one step ahead of me as he approached the well with a fragmentation grenade in his hand.
FIRE IN THE HOLE! as he gently tossed it over the rim from a few back, urging us all to stand clear.
The old woman had protested vehemently and had to be restrained by Grizz. This only led sarge to believe she was worrying about more than the water supply.
The ground shook four seconds later, with the well creating what amounted to a giant shotgun tube.
It was more than water raining back down upon us. There were scraps of metal, wood and human body parts. No doubt more weapons and perhaps VC waiting to pop out of the cake blasting away.
We found enough rope to tie the old man and the mamsan to a tree. Sarge was now convinced without a doubt they were VC. The young women and children were sent marching out of town, just like in an old western.
They did so with reluctance. Perhaps they feared the VC as much as they feared us.
But there was no way to secure them on such short notice without locking them up in the barn. But if all went according to plan, the barn would soon meet the same fate as the well.
And no way we could have them at our backs unsupervised, for we needed every last man on the perimeter.
The words of Ernie and 1SG Jenkins back at Long Binh came back to me.
Lot of vets up there. Just pay attention to the oldtimers.
If SGTs Lykes and Jones were nervous, they didn't let it show. I have seen high school football coaches way more frantic over something as inconsequential as a scrimmage game.
They moved about as if it was just a routine training operation. I can't speak for anybody else, but it gave me some reassurance.
I found a nutural depression about fifty feet out from the row of huts. To get out much further would spread us too thin, and we didn't have enough men as it was, for a perimeter of this size.
The dip I found only needed some fine tuning to provide me with a snug little fortress, with a substantial embankment affording protection.
I placed all three of my claymores about forty feet apart and a hundred feet out.
I then used my bayonet to carve a notch in a tree closest to each one, for I would surely not be able to remember the exact locations in the thick underbrush.
I accomplished all this in minutes, although it felt much longer, trying to focus on the job at hand while scanning the surrounding jungle for movement.
A fleeting movement a hundred yards out. Then again, barely visible above the undergowth. A little closer this time. Another one. No sound as one would expect from this distance.
No rustle of the leaves. Nothing. But a cottonmoth was quiet too.
I realized I was seeing the tops of their helmets. The netting was rigged with vegetation that perfectly matched the surrounding fauna.
They were invisble when they stopped. Like ghosts in the forest. Their practiced movements were synchronized. They seemed to move individually, not as a group.
That made it impossible to judge how many there were. I couldn't yell out. I could only hope I wasn't the only one seeing them.
Focusing on my trees now with the notches. Just a little closer boys.

 

That's a good question. Reed is simply a variation of my last name, because I drew so much from my life in these tales. No way I could dream up this stuff from scratch.
I just never thought these stories would see the light of day, much less end up in the same place, to be honest.
Just something else to work out in the final draft.

 

My new dedicated run is a step in the right direction. I get home saturday evening and don't leave back out until wednesday morning.
I was looking forward to this extra time, but I often find myself staring at a blank screen.
My best thinking still comes when I'm looking out through the windshield, but now I have more time to get it down.

 

These claymores made me think about old Willie Hicks' shotgun. I didn't like using it for shooting snakes. I always worried about stray pellets hitting a cow.
But I did learn that the closer I was to the target, the tighter the pattern was, and the more damage it did.
But I wasn't worried about hitting any cows this morning. The difference with this contraption was I couldn't aim it. Just had to hope somebody came close enough to it.
They taught us in Infantry school that the optimum lethal range was about half a football field with a 30% chance of engaging the target.
I don't consider them very good odds and planned on letting them fellas get a mite closer.
I figured about 20 yards oughta cut somebody in half. I aimed them down the clearest openings I could find, figuring those were the most likely avenues of approach.
The mine fired in a sixty degree arc. Not sure what that related to at 20 yards and I wasn't exactly in the mood for long division.
But I did figure anybody within a few feet to either side of my tree was a dead man, and I was about to find out.
I spied the slightest glimpse of movement 25-30 yards from the tree on the right. I caught something to his right/my left a little further from the center tree than I would have liked, but it would have to do.
I had a clacker in each hand, planning to blow them together, when gunfire erupted behind me, from the opposite side of the perimeter.
To my foe's credit, he never wavered. Didn't even flinch. Neither did I.
We were both focused on the matter at hand, not concerned with the rifle blasts a hundred yards away.
Close enough, I thought as I pressed both triggers at once. As expected, nothing happened. Not yet anyway.
After pressing each clacker frantically, several times, the claymores erupted less than a second apart.
I'm sure the VC closest to me heard the trademark clacking, for I finally saw his whole head as he rose up to take aim.
Knowing what was about to happen, he rightfully figured it was time to fish or cut bait.
He was hoping for the claymore to miss and for me to raise up to investigate the results.
Fortunately for me, it didn't work out that way. Best I could tell, he took a near direct hit, about waist level.
Upward force sent him into the air and his rifle flying out of his hands. His partner was a few feet to his rear and off to one side.
He fell awkwardly forward. I couldn't tell if he was finished, but he wasn't shooting at me anyway.
Sensing movement to my left, I saw three VC running at the obligue, across and away from me, toward Grizz's position.
I clicked my last claymore, the one furthermost left. Perfect distance, but wrong direction.
It did serve as a distraction, however, giving Grizz some slack, for they stopped and went into a crouch.
Thinking Grizz detonated the mine, and unaware of my presence, they never looked in my direction.
I flipped to full auto and emptied my entire magazine into the trio, dropping them all. Not waiting around to admire the results, I dropped back into my hole to change clips.
As the fresh mag clicked into place, a shadow fell over me. A bloodied and mangled VC stood over my hole holding a Soviet pistol.
Even at such a short distance, his first shot missed. Before he could pull the trigger again, his head expoded.

 

"You alright Reb?" came a voice from my right.
It was Ant over in the next hole. He saw the man (turns out he was an officer, hence the sidearm) standing over my hole and issued forth a three round burst to the head.
He was the apparent survivor of the claymore blast on the right, the falling soldier that I had forgotten. The last time I take anything for granted.
"Yeah, buddy, I'm still in one piece, thanks to you." I shouted back.
Now I was concerned with the guys I saw in the area of my center claymore.
Were they just playing possum or patiently easing their way forward?Or did I blow them up?
I had to risk a peek. My cover was surely blown now, considering I had a dead VC lieutenant in front of my hole.
Cautiously raising my head, I was greeted with a faceful of dirt kicked up by rounds landing a foot or so from my position.
Panic set in as I thought I was blinded. I forced myself to remain calm and groped for my canteen.
I leaned my head back to a horizontal angle and carefully poured water into each eye and blinked rapidly.
Although blurry, my vision returned, which was a major relief, my second one in a matter of seconds.
The natural tearing process was taking over, helping immensely, but the grit trapped under my eyelids was still there.
Explosions nearby took my mind off the grit in my eyes temporarily as I heard Ant yell "Way to go Grizz!"
The very VC I was worried about had surfaced and were advancing toward my hole, most likely the ones that had fired on me, thinking they had hit me, since I hadn't resurfaced.
An astute Grizz began pitching grenades with the ease of a baseball pitcher taking out three of the four soldiers. I took out the fourth with a three round burst.