The Uninvited Guest

A quiet night in the perimeter bunkers at Long Binh, Vietnam. Headly had wandered out 50 feet down the blast wall to practice his Tennessee boy heritage of peeing on the barb wire. Easy to do, as the wall was only a couple of feet high at that point, and the wire just on the other side.

He was sort of humming a Buck Owens tune, gazing at the stars, and blissfully finding relief. Then he looked down three feet to his right, and came face to face with the Viet Cong. Well, not exactly face to face, Charlie was on his hands and knees crawling through the concertina wire. But there he was, resplendent in his black pajamas, and obviously filled with evil intent.

Headly had no weapon with him, thinking that one was not needed for the mission at hand. So his only choice was to take off running for the bunker, trying to return “the general” to his fly, and screaming, “Sappers, Goldamn Sappers....Oh, God, help.”

Sappers were specialized VC whose skill was breaking through the perimeter of US camps, usually secretly. These uninvited guests then generally acted very rudely, delivering gift packages of high explosives tossed into the backs of bunkers, or onboard parked helicopters, or into hooches filled with sleeping men.

Headly's cries set in motion a series of planned, if not well-choreographed, actions. As he tumbled back into the bunker, others were coming out with a couple of flares in hand, while someone else was cranking the field phone to alert the Officer of the Day, and to request illumination flares from II Field Force Artillery. The fourth man grabs the rudimentary Starscope from the bunker and begins scanning the wire. The bunker now redolent with adrenaline and testosterone.

The man with the flares pops the first one, a red star shell that indicates an attack at the wire. Then the second which is a smaller version of the magnesium flares the arty would soon be sending. Brightly burning magnesium drifted back to earth under a parachute, casting white light on all below.

In quick order, the Starscope and then the flare confirmed Headly's report. Out there in the wire was the black pj enemy crawling into the camp. “Where's his team?! Find his team!” But it seemed the rising alarms had sent the rest of his crew scurrying back into the rice paddies.

The artillery flares arrived with two loud bangs a couple of hundred feet up, and turned the whole scene into stark daylight. Then four M-16s spoke to the sapper. Then everyone hunkered down to wait and watch.

As the flares died out, the reinforcement reaction force comes roaring up, and the captain waves a sergeant with a strong flashlight toward the point of the infiltration. People still shouting, “His team's still out there. Keep low.”

Dropping to the ground at the blast wall, then carefully peering over with his light, the sergeant examined the attacker, then waved the officer forward.

The sarge, and the captain, and a whole bunch of other people, were really pissed off to discover a very shot up black pot-bellied pig.