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By Root 918 0

into the lead tank of H Company. It had penetrated the underside of the hull up to the accelerator pedal of the driver. The column halted, penned in along the narrow logging road, with the lead driver wounded in his seat, and the tank commander, a young shake'n'bake staff sergeant, frozen inside his turret. The point tank thus did not lay down any return fire. A second NVA sprang up from the roadside vegetation long enough to send another RPG shrieking from the launcher over his shoulder toward the double antennae marking the command tank. The RPG penetrated the right side of the turret in a thunderclap that blew the tank commander in half and, in the same millisecond, blasted a spray of fragments through the open loader's hatch over which Sisson's legs were stretched. Captain Sisson, in steel pot and flak jacket, was hurled to the ground, with the bone of one leg shattered. Cunningham, his driver, turned in his seat to see the tank commander, who was his best friend, splattered inside the turret. Cunningham scrambled backward and stood up in the turret cupola to yell for help and to reman the .50-caliber just as another RPG hit the minigun can beside his head that was filled with machine gun ammunition. Cunningham was obliterated just like his friend.

In Sergeant Hackbarth's tank, which was several behind Sisson's, the loader, Langston, instantly dropped through his hatch into the turret to set the safety on the main gun as Hackbarth traversed the tube. Conk-right, sitting atop the rations and ammo boxes in the bustle rack, sprayed fire from his M16 into the trees to their rear flanks. The 90mm main gun hit a tree, and Hackbarth yelled at his driver, Edwards, to move forward, but the tank did not move and the gun tube only swung into another tree before it could be traversed far enough to be brought to bear. Hackbarth instead fired his .50-cal, but it jammed after the first shot. He grabbed his M16 and opened fire with that, realizing that the tree branch they had slammed into the day before had warped the receiver of the machine gun. He also realized that the rain shower the previous night had fizzled the wiring in his communications helmet, and he was reduced to leaning out of his cupola as far as he could and throwing expended .50-cal brass at Edwards to get his attention. Edwards finally looked back, and Hackbarth screamed at the top of his lungs to move forward. The 90mm tube finally cleared the trees. As fast as Langston could slam rounds into the breach, Hackbarth used his TC override and main gun trigger to send the shells crashing through the trees, even as he continued to fire his M16 and his jammed .50-cal one round at a time.

That's when Sergeant Hackbarth noticed Lieutenant Anderson–an asshole in his opinion–talking on the radio atop the ACAV ahead. Quickly glancing around–everyone was busy firing and reloading–he lined up his M16 sights on the lieutenant's head. He hesitated, then swung his rifle back toward the real enemy hidden in the trees around them.

The invisible NVA began to withdraw.

Captain Menzel had, meanwhile, jumped down from his ACAV with his AK and hopped atop the logs along the road to-run forward. He yelled to an H Company platoon leader, who shouted back that the senior platoon leader had assumed command and that Brookshire had ordered an immediate withdrawal to the laager with their two dead and six wounded. Continuing the battle in the enemy's terrain would have resulted in more disabled vehicles and few kills, but Menzel was disappointed with the order: It was the only time that he had seen Battle Six shy away from a fight.

Lieutenant Colonel Brookshire, in the perch of his C&C Huey, watched Sisson being loaded into a medevac in the laager. He was as gravely concerned over the wounded captain as he was over the rest of H Company. It had been a mistake born of the regiment's aggressive motto to FIND THE BASTARDS, THEN PILE ON to have even deployed the tank company in this jungle complex. The terrain was too rough on them, and the enemy was experienced enough to dig his spiderholes