Loon - Jack McLean [41]
Within this context a most wonderful event occurred. After several miles of trucks and troop-laden tanks passed, I heard a familiar voice. My head snapped around to see the beaming face of Sid MacLeod, my friend since Camp Geiger, looking down from atop a passing truck. “Jackson. Hey, Jackson, how’d they let a second-rate supply guy get this close to the front?”
“Well, kiss my ass,” I replied. “Look at you, all dressed up like a marine.” My heart leapt out of my chest at the sight of Sid. I felt unbridled joy. He jumped down to the road and we just stared at each other. The encounter filled me with reassurance that I strongly remember to this day. Sid had been trying to get to Vietnam for a year, and now that he was here, he looked strong, focused, and happy. As strange and foreign as the whole scene was to me during those early weeks near Hue, the sight of Sid was reality. It reminded me that I was still sane. This friend from another time and place was seeing the same things that my eyes were seeing, and through his silent counsel, he was telling me that everything was going to be all right. This was what he had asked for. It was the happiest that I had ever seen Sid MacLeod.
With a lurch, the motors jumped back to life and the convoy began slowly to move forward. Sid grappled his way back up onto the truck, smiled, waved, and was gone. He was with 3/26, the 3rd Battalion of the 26th Marine Regiment. They were headed all the way west to Khe Sanh. We were headed all the way north to the DMZ.
We agreed to write.
Six months later, Sid was dead.
The following day, we began to get resupplied. It appeared that we were getting ready for a major operation. Word was that we were headed up to the “Firebreak”—a strip of land along the length of the demilitarized zone between North and South Vietnam that had been, under orders from Secretary of Defense McNamara, completely stripped of all vegetation. To the marines, it was affectionately known as the Trace. For the balance of my tour, our proximity to the Trace would be measured in meters rather than miles. Nothing living remained that way if it sat between us and the Trace.
We were the front line in a war that had precious few of them.
The early December weather was cold, cloudy, and rainy as we saddled up. We were choppered up to Con Thien, and then set off with Delta Company for the north. Our mission was to provide security for the Seabees who were building a road along the Trace between Con Thien and Gio Linh to the east. My every nerve and fiber was alert. The enemy could be anywhere and was certainly watching my every move. The old-timers spoke of their last visit to this area, where several boys had been killed and many had been injured.
“Right over there, McQuade. Remember? That’s the old road down to the A Shau Valley,” said radio operator Benny Lerma. “Isn’t that where the gook with the RPG hit you last summer? The little motherfucker. I’d like to see him come out now. I’d stitch him from toe to head.”
“You’re such an asshole, Lerma. Shut up and keep walking or he’ll stitch your ass,” came McQuade’s bored reply.
McQuade, a machine gunner from Baltimore, Maryland, had been on the back of a truck doing road security. Years later, he recalled seeing a spot coming at him out of the corner of his eye. It was a rocket-propelled grenade that hit the cab of the truck before he could wince. The explosion killed the driver instantly. The other gunner succumbed to wounds later that afternoon. McQuade and the three others on the team suffered shrapnel wounds.
Our boys knew the terrain well and were eager for some payback. My strength grew with their confidence and bravado, but I hoped that the little motherfucker would not reemerge just yet. My first taste of combat would come soon, but I was in no rush to speed the process.
The first night was miserable.
The rain poured down, it was viciously cold, and there was no protection. Yet we were able to dig adequate fighting holes in the mud, fix the perimeters and lines of fire, arm the claymore mines, and set