Napalm Dreams by John F. Mullins

Author:John F. Mullins [Mullins, John F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2004-01-15T05:00:00+00:00

The NVA obviously had their own forward observer somewhere out there in the hills. The artillery barrages were being adjusted as precisely as the inherent inaccuracy of the Russian-supplied weapons allowed, marching from one critical point to another.

The FO had apparently decided that the chances of nailing someone on the helicopter rescue were too good to pass up. After a false start, when the shells fell a hundred meters short, they were now pounding the wreckage into tiny pieces.

Finn knew he owed his life to pure chance. Perhaps the enemy forward observer had misread his map. Or had incorrectly estimated distances. Or maybe it was that the battery across the border hadn’t properly placed their aiming stakes, or it could be that the fire-direction-center people were slightly inexperienced.

Whatever it was, it meant that while he was cutting the aviator, whose name the pilot had told him but he’d already forgotten, free from the wreckage the shells were falling somewhere else. And by the time they’d corrected their mistake, he was gone. Otherwise they’d have had to pick him up with a broom and dustpan.

Of just such chances of fate he’d survived thus far. People like him often ascribed it to luck. I’m just a naturally lucky person, they’d say. Sonsabitches can’t get me, I’m too lucky!

Others attributed it to God. They were protected by their special relationship with the deity, no matter what that deity might be.

And still others subscribed to the notion that everything was preordained. It didn’t really matter what you did. You were either going to live or die depending upon how it had already been written in the book of fate. Just not my time to die, they would say after coming out of a situation wherein they, by all logic, should not have.

And finally, there were those who thought they were indestructible. That the world couldn’t possibly do without them, and thus couldn’t imagine their own demise. Ten foot tall and bulletproof.

Finn had gone through all those stages at one time or another. Thinking himself bulletproof had departed immediately upon his receiving his first wound. The bullet hit you, and of course the shock and pain were there. But worse was the realization that you could really die. That the round that entered your leg, the shrapnel that tore up your arm, the mine fragments that peppered you without really doing any serious or long-term damage, could very well have had an entirely different outcome.

Generally, the thought of being lucky departed at about the same time. The really self-deluded, however, told themselves that this was merely one more sign of their good luck. That had they not moved this way or that, the bullet that had hit them in the arm would have impacted directly in the middle of their chest.

Or was God guiding the aim of the enemy? The Montagnards certainly thought so. Few of them would go into combat without their Buddha amulets, generally clutched in their teeth. Buddha will protect you, Dai

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.