15 Months in SOG by Thom Nicholson

point.”
    I called the AFCC and told them of my plan while the company was loading up. The men were quiet, and I didn’t see a single night security violation. AFCC wasn’t happy and told me the Marines at the fort were in desperate straits, but I flat out refused to go up the road in the dark. “You’ll have to get the CO of CCN to order me before I’ll do it,” I insisted. “Meanwhile, we’re wasting time arguing. I’m departing RON now and estimate arrival at the outpost at 0430.”
    The two NCOs I had sent for arrived. Sergeant Garrett was a first-rate soldier, a slow-talking cracker from Georgia with the scarred face of a man whose teenage years had been plagued by superzits. He had joined the army to get away from poverty and was a gung ho career man. Like many southern boys in the service, he was lean and rawboned, able to withstand the rigors of army life in the field without a thought of complaint.
    Giving Sergeant Garrett orders to stay off the road but togo as fast as he could cross-country, I moved the company out. Movement was slow, and Americans were fighting a desperate battle ahead of me, but we couldn’t do any good getting the shit shot out of us before we even got to the old fort. The wet brush quickly soaked our clothing, increasing our discomfort. The drip of raindrops muffled the tread of our boots on the wet ground. Besides, I consoled myself as I panted through the darkness, “They’re only Marines.”
    My estimate of the net worth of a handful of Marines was about to take a giant leap forward. Live and learn. Those Marines were about to show me some real heroism.
    We didn’t see or hear anything that seemed suspicious until we came to a wide stream, maybe a thousand yards from the little hill where the old fort was located. As the point squad started across, a single automatic weapon clattered a red stream of death at us. If the enemy gunner had been only a little more patient, he could have greased the whole bunch of us in the middle of the water. As it was, he killed one of the strikers and wounded another very slightly in the hand.
    In an instant, nearly everyone on our side dropped to the ground and opened up. The VC over there must have been scared half to death, or shot to hell, or both; when we cautiously crossed the stream, the night remained quiet. By that time, the light from the star shells helped illuminate the ground in front of us, but the flickering light made every bush come alive, every tree seem a threatening, half-visible menace. Detailing a couple of men to carry the KIA, we moved as quickly as possible, using the trees and brush for cover, toward the hill. But it sounded as if the shooting had lost some of its previous intensity.
    Of course, choppers and planes were overhead, blasting the hell out of anything that even looked like a target. VC and NVA soldiers were tough, but nobody could take the massed fire of helicopter gunships very long without backing off. The enemy soldier was well able to face fire from an opponent on the ground, but when the airplanes zipped past, dealing deathwith startling, overwhelming, high-volume efficiency, his resolve quickly faded.
    Sergeant Garrett sent word back that he saw activity to his front. I really didn’t want to go into an attack formation so far from the objective, but we couldn’t walk up single file, right to the door. One of the most hazardous undertakings is an assault directly into the face of the enemy, so reluctantly, I spread the word for the unit to go on line, and off we went, three platoons abreast, and my little HQ section behind the middle of the formation.
    The line of men stretched about a quarter of a mile, and I couldn’t see either end from my position. It was definitely pucker time for everyone; not a man of the two hundred, slowly advancing with me toward the sound of the guns, could have squeezed out a fart louder than a gnat’s whisper.
    My mouth was dry and my palms were sweating profusely.