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Nobody in Charlie Company wanted to be where he was, and when we walked off Fire Base Hall and into the jungle, it was easy to sympathize. We marched as a company for an hour, then divided into three platoons. After two miles, the jungle gave way to incredibly thick undergrowth—not high enough to block out the sun and too dense to move through, either quickly or silently. Napalm strikes had killed all the tall trees whose shade once kept down the growth on the jungle floor.
Charlie Company was fresh from a weekend in the seaside resort of Vung Tau—a prized opportunity for revelry and relaxation that comes only once every 45 days. The company has no barracks, no dress uniforms (they are stored in boxes at Bien Hoa) and no personal possessions (letters are the only personal items allowed in the field). The Vung Tau weekend, which the men enjoy in fatigues, is the only break in an endless cycle of ten-to 15-day patrols and three-day rests on a fire base with no hot showers and few other amenities.
No Hammocks. We are supposed to patrol until 5 o'clock, when the rules say that the night defensive position should be set up. If a unit moves after 5, there is a danger that a contact might run on after darkness, making air support more difficult. But at 5 it is pouring rain, and we are still in scrub, which is not good for a night position because there are no trees big enough to stop enemy mortars. It is close to 6 when we find a few trees, and everybody starts putting up his hooch. I pull out my hammock. "No hammocks," says Sergeant Henry A. Johnson, a Virginian who has a master's degree in communications. "The C.O. doesn't allow them. Too vulnerable to mortars. The C.O. believes in being cautious."
"Line One." When we move out at dawn next morning, everyone is a bit more nimble, perhaps because the Vung Tau hangovers are gone. We walk all morning, stopping for a ten-minute break each hour. At the noon break, the radio sputters with orders from the battalion commander to a unit that has made contact with the enemy five miles away. There was an ambush; one American was killed when he walked into an NVA bunker complex. Another is wounded and a helicopter is down. The battalion commander, flying overhead in his helicopter, says he is going in to pick up the downed pilot. His chopper is loaded with electronic gear and it is too heavy for any task that requires acrobatics. "Jesus, Colonel, be careful," whispers the radio operator, Pfc. Erik Lewis, 21. The rescue is successful.
Lewis tells me that a "Line One" (meaning a G.I. combat death in army jargon) "happens just rare enough so that nobody at home knows about it. But if you're out here, your peace outlook goes straight to zero." And, he adds, "I'm going to kill as many of those mothers as I can."