Daymares

This story contains wartime contents and may cause mental discomfort to extra sensitive individuals or combat veterans.

It provides a raw glimpse of the horrors from similar past, current and future conflicts.

This is for the few that lived experiences like this.

You gentlemen have my greatest respect.

The dream came back.

The drugs I was given prevented me from moving in the real world but, in my dream: I was back there and moving as fast as I could.

I was the last man left from the four-man stick. We had jumped in that night and made good headway under canopy. Luck was with us, at first. We landed close together and nobody broke anything. We hid all the gear we didn’t need any more then looked for a spot to hide. We spent the first day hiding in tall, dense underbrush. That evening we hiked to our destination and set the locator beacon.

We had twenty hours to get out of the area. A flight of ten B fiver dos would fly in and drop a few tons of hell on earth. If we were anywhere close; Well, we didn’t want to be close. We all wanted to be out of the country. Somewhere warm with an umbrella drink in our hands.

Our next goal getting to the extraction site. I knew the direction we needed to go.

My calculations put us out of the blast zone with two hours to spare.

The sun was rising and our uncomfort level started to ratchet up. The map showed a dense foliage area that would provide cover and was only slightly off course. We went in that direction.

A few hours later we approached a wide-open field where the “Dense Foliage” was supposed to be.

The area had recently been cleared with Daisy Cutter bombs. Those bombs would shred the surface vegetation without leaving craters, and us without any cover.

We all took a knee. I pulled out the map to find an alternate route. Opie stood up to look around. His head exploded. Mr. Foo popped his head up and suffered the same fate as Opie. I told Rat Man to stay down.

“It was snipers.” Said Rat Man.

“I know. Follow me.” We crawled back into the underbrush as fast as we could. When we couldn’t see the clearing any longer, we changed direction forty-five degrees east and continued.

“They said you were a cherry Professor. It doesn’t look like it to me.” Said Rat Man.

“Yup, I was a virgin before this op. I do my best work when I’m scared shitless.” I replied.

“Could have fooled me.” He said.

We continued on for about an hour. I stopped and popped my head up to check our surroundings, half expecting to meet the same fate as Opie and Mr. Foo.

No one that operates in this shadowy realm used their real name. You get tagged by a teammate. If the others agree, The name sticks.

Opie looked like a very young Ron Howard. Mr. Foo was a triple black belt in Taekwondo. Wide as he was tall, he could jump and kick out light bulbs in the celling.

Rat Man had been a tunnel rat. The fact that he was still alive was a testament to his skill and luck. I was tagged as The Professor in a training exercise. If someone had a question about anything they were told to ask The Professor. Most of the time I would have the corrector answer for them.

We must have traveled a few klicks by now. I estimated our position and we were still in the blast zone. That estimate didn’t include any navigational errors made by the pilots, which were frequent.

“We are running behind my friend. We need to click it up a notch or two.”

“Whatever you say Professor.

I stood up and didn’t see any sign of resent activity. There weren’t any trails I could see and the underbrush wasn’t as dense. “Let’s hoof it” I said.

We started walking quickly.

“We are cutting it close” I said. “Go as fast as you can.”

I broke into a slow trot. I wanted to save my energy as long as possible.

A half hour later I stopped to look at the map again.

“Looks like we will make it.” I said.

“You’re the man Professor.” Replied Rat Man.

We both took a small drink of water and continued to jog away from the blast area.

I saw the beginnings of a trail ahead. I had a sudden sense of danger.

I stopped. Rat Man continued. I whispered for him to stop. He didn’t hear me and suddenly he disappeared. I heard him uttering “Shit, Shit, Shit.” I walked over to the area I last saw him. He had fallen into a punji pit.

“If I pull you off the spikes you will bleed out immediately.”

“I know.” Said Rat Man. You see the discoloration on the end of the spikes?”

“Yes.” I answered.

“They dip the spikes in their shit. It will infect the wounds so if the spikes don’t kill you, the poison will. Take this,” He threw his pistol up to me.

It looked like someone had screwed a soup can on the end of a revolver.

“You may need this, it doesn’t make much noise, but gets the job done. Now get the hell out of here.”

He was right. There wasn’t anything I could do to save him.

Time was running out. I wasn’t out of the blast zone and the jets would be here soon. Against all my training and intuition, I decided to run down the trail.

I heard a click and a small explosion behind me. I sped up as fast as I could go. The second explosion was a few seconds later. The shock wave picked me up and threw me down the trail about six feet. I fell face first into the dirt.

I knew that I wouldn’t feel any pain for about a minute or so. If nothing was blown off, I can try to keep running and see what started to hurt. I scrambled to my feet and stated running again. I had tripped a Bouncing Betty.

A Bouncing Betty has two charges. The first is a smaller charge that blows the main charge up about waist level before the main charge explodes. If I had been walking, I wouldn’t have survived. Running gave me a head start of getting out of the blast radius. Being pushed by the shock wave helped. Mostly.

Everything was still attached and working so I scrambled up and kept running.

My legs and lungs were burning; there were spots floating in my vision. I had reached and went beyond my endurance level.

I didn’t see the jets, but I heard the bombs start falling. I dove into the underbrush and clawed at the dirt trying to dig a foxhole in the last few seconds before the bombs hit.

The explosions were seconds apart. A few seconds later, the first of the shock waves hit.

It was like being inside a tornado. Trees all around me were falling. One tree close to me started to fall, I was moments from being crushed. The tree fell on top of me. Thankfully, the limbs and root ball were large enough to keep the main trunk from crushing me. I was protected by the first tree that fell from the remaining trees that followed.

I was physically and emotionally drained. The mission was a success but my teammates were dead. I didn’t think I would make it to the extraction point. Not on time. Just one more MIA.

The explosions stopped. The quiet was deafening. Other than the ringing in my ears, there were no other sounds. Animals, insects, or humans: until.

In the distance I heard the unmistakable whop, whop, whop of inbound Huey’s, Many of them from the sound of it.

I crawled out of my cocoon under the tree to see a large area completely deforested. The first wave of Huey’s was coming in. They didn’t land. They hovered just above the ground while the grunts jumped out. They fanned out forming a perimeter. More and more Huey’s arrived and more soldiers jumped out some dropping more equipment. They started getting close to me. I wasn’t going to stand up. That was a sure ticket to a friendly fire incident.

“Oop’s, sorry guys. He looked like a gook.”

I found a loose branch that I tied my shirt to. Keeping my head down, I stuck the branch up and waved it back and forth yelling “I’m an American.” There were several gunshots then I heard an order to” Hold your fire.” Then toward me, “Show yourself.”

I yelled back,

“Don’t shoot me guys. I am too young to die.”

“Come out with your hands up.” was the answer.

“I’m coming. I yelled back. A tree fell on me. Can I put my shirt back on?’

“Let us see you.”

I stood up still holding the branch in my hand.

“Can I put my shirt back on now?”

“Where are you from?’

“Florida.” I answered.

“No smart ass, what unit are you from.”

‘No unit. Just a few of us guys out to do a job.”

“A spook, huh?” He muttered “where is the rest of the team?’

“Dead” I answered. “We didn’t have dog tags.”

“Alright, Come forward, slowly.” He said. “You may want our corpsman to take a look at you.”

“Why,” I answered.

“You have blood all over you.”

I woke to the sun coming in the window, drenched in sweat and shaking.