Platoon Leader by James R. McDonough

Author:James R. McDonough
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307416384
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 13

THE LOWLY INFANTRYMAN

It is somewhat unnerving to go about your mission with someone spraying bullets at you. That became typical of the enemy tactic against us during the last half of October. The old stand-by booby traps were still out there waiting for us to take a wrong step, but the enemy was avoiding direct, close-in firefights. They were licking their wounds, but they were not letting up on the pressure.

From distances of five hundred to six hundred meters the enemy would try to catch us as we moved within our perimeter or crossed an open area on patrol. At that range we had little chance of hitting them with direct-fire weapons such as rifles or machine guns, and they were beyond the four-hundred-meter range of our M-79 grenade launchers. The only weapons we could use against such attacks were the company 81-millimeter mortars, of which there were three, all of them located in company headquarters. By the time we received clearance to use them in such a populated area, the enemy was long gone.

It was a frustrating time. Seldom was the enemy effective from such ranges, but a single casualty a day could wipe out a platoon in a month. It was hard for us to see men we knew carried away in pain, with no way of getting back at those who had hurt them. I began to worry about the state of our morale.

But the American soldier has a remarkable capacity to find relief amid the most depressing predicaments. There was a little of Phil Nail in each of us, and although he was still off recuperating in some hospital, we all followed his example and refused to take ourselves too seriously.

One sunny day found us laboring with the details of our existence atop our barren knoll astride Truong Lam. Our Kit Carson scout, Nhan, was relaxing with a can of peaches, no doubt contemplating a late afternoon liaison with a pleasantly plump widow who had caught his eye while going about her village chores. Platoon Sergeant Hernandez and a small detail were stacking extra ammunition in a little hollow we had dug out of the eastern side of the crest, while a recently returned squad was heating some C rations.

I was busy interviewing a new arrival, Pfc Steve Fricker from Minot, North Dakota. Fricker had the markings of a good soldier—intelligent, alert, athletic— but one of his habits concerned me. He was a vegetarian.

“But the staple of the C ration is meat,” I had tried to explain.

Fricker was undaunted. “No problem, sir. I’ll see what I can trade for. And one of the guys told me there’s a short, fat, delicious banana that grows around here.”

As I was contemplating that unique problem, my thoughts were interrupted by a deadly spray of bullets that came zinging across the perimeter. Fricker and I crashed into each other as we dove into my little slit trench. Nhan joined us a split second later, spilling his peaches and syrup all over us as he tried to squirrel into the brown earth.

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