Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [70]
Thompson was itching to get back on his Sheridan, three-eight–that was his lucky star, he and she were going to make it through this–but the Sheridan of Platoon Sergeant Brown, three-seven, needed extra hands, namely his. He found the situation even more galling that morning when, as they moved out for the border, he saw his three-eight with the squadron maintenance vehicles parked to the side of the trail leading out of the laager. Three-eight needed engine work. Keith Arneson, the loader, who was one of Thompson's best friends, stood on the back deck waving his arms and laughing that he wasn't going. That's what he thought. Arneson had caught up with Thompson by the time they made their on-line assault on the enemy bunkers. When the RPG slammed into Arneson's Sheridan, an ant nest was dislodged from its tree branches and it dropped into the driver's compartment of Thompson's Sheridan. Thompson leaped from his hatch, covered by giant red ants with jaws up front and stingers on their rears, screaming and yelling amid the shooting as he sprayed a can of insect repellent on himself. The ambush climaxed in short order. The medevacs landed and Thompson went over to say good-bye to Arneson. The firing had not all died down, and someone screamed at him to get out of there.
“ Screw you, I want to see my friend!”
Thompson found what was left of his buddy. His head was gone. But at least Thompson felt he'd paid his last respects.
The next morning, the driver of the RPG-mangled Sheridan had the unhappy task of vacuum cleaning the splattered mess left behind by his dead and wounded crew mates. Still in shock, the kid was making a lousy job of it. Thompson climbed aboard to help. Inside and outside, the Sheridan was covered with tiny flecks of meat. Thompson tossed out little fleshy strips of pink or gray like it was nothing, until he noticed flies landing on one hanging from a tree branch. Thompson had seen plenty of dead NVA swarming with maggots, which had not fazed him in the least, but seeing that little strip of what used to be his friend with flies buzzing around it was more than he could take. Even after Thompson got home, no matter where he was or what he was doing, if a fly landed near him, he had to kill it.
* * *
Having at first tried to get rid of the reporters, but having been told by brigade that they were to be permitted, Lieutenant Colonel Claybrook, CO, 2-47 Mech of the 9th Division, briefed his officers on the morning of 2 May 1970, with twenty or thirty members of the international press arranged around them with minicams. Claybrook gave the tac order verbally: They were to continue north through rubber plantations until reaching Route 7, which ran west to east. Then he gathered his gear to board the C&C Huey from the 1st Cav inbound to their grassy laager.
As the battalion task force rolled north, with C/2-47 Mech and several tanks from A/2-34 Armor on point, they occasionally came under RPG and AK47 fire. In those initial days across the border, before the units spread out and assets became strained, all a commander had to do was pick up his radio handset and Broncos and Phantoms would appear almost instantly. Each mini-ambush was thus saturated with bombs and napalm as the tanks and tracks broke contact and kept pushing toward the highway. When the C&C Huey was going to