Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [178]
Ned moved on before Ross said anything.
The driver from Dave's track was brought past on a stretcher, his back and shoulders gouged from shrapnel. Ross remembered that when they had been mounting up that morning, Bucky May had told everyone to wear their helmet and flak jacket. The driver had decided not to wear his flak jacket because of the heat. It looked now like the kid was going to die.
Leaving the point track, they backed up to a point where the trail widened enough to allow each APC to worm its way around, and Alpha Company finally made it back to a grassy, bushy, green clearing. Smoke came through the canopy from the blazing track, and the Phantoms used that as their marking point. The GIs sat atop their APCs for an hour watching the air strikes, then were ordered to mount a second attack.
This time Jim Ross's was the point track. Rolling back down the same trail, they rounded the same bend, and thirty feet ahead the smoldering APC sat dead on the path, ammunition still cooking off. Dismounted infantrymen warily went on ahead, disappearing amid the brush and trees beyond the burned-out track. Ross began rolling again behind their skirmish line, and in the exact same spot as before, the NVA signaled the beginning of their ambush with an RPG. Ross heard the projectile cut the air, hit a tree, and explode. He began shredding brush with his .50-cal, as did the TC on the APC behind him. The straight-leggers ahead came on the radio: One of their men had been shot in the back, apparently by one of the fifties.
They backed out again. More mede vacs. More air strikes. They went back in. Ross had driver Keinroth bull their APC through the brush to get around the still-smoking APC blocking the trail. He got back on the trail, and fifty meters beyond, the vegetation abruptly thinned out under the canopy. The place was dotted with hootches hidden by the canopy above. The NVA security battalion was gone. The cache hunting began, but Alpha spent the night back down the trail in the clearing of lush grass.
Little was found. Morale was low.
On 31 May, Ross and another APC accompanied a recovery vehicle back up the trail to recover the destroyed APC in accordance with the corps-wide directive that no equipment be left behind in Cambodia no matter that it be unusable. The GIs, angry, bitching, emotionally braced for another ambush, slowly rolled down the shadow-darkened corridor. The APC sat on the jungle trail, its aluminum sides puffed out like a bulging bullfrog, the cupola blown away, back deck caved in, the entire vehicle charred like a can thrown in an incinerator. They towed it back to the lush field, and shortly before dark a team from Graves Registration was helicoptered in. In the hulk they found a dog tag, a ring, and several bone fragments.
Ross sat atop his APC, plagued by mosquitoes. He felt his resentment growing as the Graves team sifted through the charred interior of Dave's track. Depressed, angry, irritable, he glowered as GIs from the CP and other platoons gathered around the wreck. Dave had been the best. They had spent many nights quietly talking on guard. They had been on the same wavelength. The only time Dave had complained was when he had talked about how terribly homesick he was. Something in Ross snapped. He grabbed his Ml6 and fidgeted with it on his lap, bounced it on his knees, getting angrier and angrier. He jumped down and strode toward the wreck, screaming at everyone to get the hell away: Fucking ghouls, what did they think this was, a freak show at the circus? Frenzied, boiling, Ross leveled his M16 at them from waist high and most everyone immediately disappeared.
A few men held their ground, staring back at him, and from the corner of his eye, Ross saw Captain Lechner, whom he respected but did not like, easing up to one side of him. Lechner asked him for his weapon.
“Get fucked!”
Lechner calmly ordered everyone to move away. He then also backed off, leaving Ross with no one to confront. Finally, Ross lowered