Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [84]
Two men were running down the gravel road.
Hackbarth shouted for permission to open fire. The gooks were looking back over their shoulders–he could see their brown shirts, brown shorts, and sandals. But Platoon Sergeant King shouted back over the radio helmet that there were civilians in the area and not to fire unless fired upon.
Hackbarth was terrified. His adrenaline was surging, his bladder was ready to burst, and he knew that in his exposed position, with the enemy allowed the first shot, an RPG team was going to reduce him to shreds. His mind was reeling, and it locked onto what seemed the obvious answer: Lieutenant Anderson had put him on point precisely to get him blown away. The two men despised each other, and Hackbarth later considered taking his revenge: “To this day I can remember the perfect picture of the lieutenant's head in my M16 rifle sight. But the basic morals that I had overshadowed the animalistic urge to kill him.”
Jerking over the rubber tree stumps, their tank headed toward the next line of bushy-topped rubber trees across terrain that was flat and open and swirling with reddish clay dust at their passage. The airstrip was ahead to their right, pointing north, which was the direction of their attack, but everyone's eyes were really focused on the rubber trees to either side. No jackhammering of fire erupted from the darkness under the trees, but there was a rattle of unorganized shooting as H Company pressed forward in a roar of machine gun fire and diesel engines that sent the North Vietnamese running. At a distance of a hundred meters, cannister rounds cracked as NVA clambered from their slit trenches in the rubber trees. The mob stumbled to the east, across the airstrip and through the trees leading to Highway 13. Brookshire quickly directed Sisson to put H Company on line to anchor the left flank. The right flank of the tank company was to come up to the airstrip, which was to be the center line of their advance.
Juggling radios atop his ACAV, Brookshire contacted Menzel to bring G Troop up on the right flank: “Battle Three-six, this is Battle Six. Move up through Battle Four-six formation, and attack and clear eastern half of Snoul plantation. Your left boundary is the north-south airstrip. Over.”
Captain Menzel acknowledged, then pressed the CVC helmet switch to the troop frequency to talk with Chaplain Trobaugh1 and Lieutenant Burg: “continue in column and be prepared to react to my orders. Three-six, turn right at the edge of the plantation and head for the south end of the airstrip. Work your way through and around the tanks. Over.”
G Troop had been several hundred meters behind the original point of contact, but they now picked up speed along the gravel road they'd been following and the rubber tree line came up fast. The troop swung a right turn onto a dirt trail that ran east before reaching the trees, and Menzel's ACAV skidded as they cornered the turn. The tread tugged at the lip of a drainage culvert entrenched under the road, and the right track dipped, gripped the bank again, and popped back onto the road, in the process almost tossing Menzel off the back deck like a catapult. The driver started to slow down, but Menzel hollered into the vehicle intercom to keep going. They roared past Starry and Brookshire, who had pulled their ACAVs over at the intersection of the gravel and dirt trails, and Menzel gave a quick thumbs-up to Brookshire as he hurtled past with a plume of dust behind his track. Menzel spotted the airstrip and barked into his intercom, “Three-six, on line to the left. Two-six, on line to the right. Guide on my vehicle.” They