The Battle of Freestone Gulch

We return once again to the thrilling days of yesteryear and the Edenic verdancy that is South East Asia.

“Hinges,” said Chappy.

“Gonna be,” replied Looie.

In GI shorthand, the corporal and the Lieutenant had just agreed that the day was going to be hotter than the hinges on the gates of Hell. The platoon was saddling up for a Sweep—a slog through muddy paddies and jungle patches full of wait-a-minute vines. The latter have so many stickers on them that as you brush by, they grab your pants or shirt and make you wait a minute while you untangle.

The point of the day's sweep was not to find any VC. In fact, all on the hike were planning to do everything possible to avoid seeing Charlie. The point was to find ammunition caches. Charlie would move in stocks of mortar rounds and rockets close to the base so that they'd be at hand on the night of an attack. The companies on the base had to take turns sending out platoons to see if they could blunder through the countryside and stumble on and destroy these. Being out in what the troops called “Indian Country” for a few hours in 105 degrees and 200% humidity was not a fun way to spend the day. Not the least reason being that though we didn't want to find Charlie, Charlie didn't want us to find the ammo, and would sort of “discourage” us from the sweep if he could. He had claymore, RPG, and AK discouragers at hand. “What'll we do if we find a cache, Sarge?”

“Blow it up.”

“Hell, Sarge, that's all Charlie's gonna do with it. We could stay home.”

At noon, having found nothing, the platoon stopped for lunch. A gourmet repast out of C-Ration packs that one veteran described as “tastes like the back seat of a NY taxi.”

There were bright spots in the Cs, and with the luck of the draw, you might get one. The Beanie Weinies weren't too bad, and the fruit cocktail, and canned pound cake were ok. But the prize of prizes was a can of peaches. C rat cans of peaches were so valuable that I never saw a GI trade one for anything—not even pot or sex.

Chappy got the winner that day. And he waxed poetic as to the glories of the sweet golden gems and how they'd fare in his mouth. “In fact,” he said, “I'm not gonna eat these now. I'm going to save them for tonight.” And he tucked the small, olive-drab painted can under the top flap of his olive-drab pack. That placement, and those colors under the rice paddy sun, become important in only a couple of hours.

There was never any attempt at stealth on one of these sweeps. In fact, we did not want to surprise anyone. Make enough noise and let them slip away. So, the next couple of midday hours were spent slogging line abreast, to search the most area, shouting rude/crude jokes, listening to the black guys “do the dozens” ('Hey, Homer, Yo Mama so poor, doesn' she have her face on Food Stamps?'), and singing snatches of songs. Mostly of two songs. The first, the GI Anthem, “We Gotta Get Outa This Place.” The other, the jingle from the Army recruiting commercials back in the world, “If You're Good Enough to Get In.” ('Back in the world' mostly meant the US, but could really mean anywhere but Vietnam. “Where you from back in the world?” “Missouri.”)

Somewhere in the middle of a chorus of “Good enough” the platoon slammed into an ambush. Or, more precisely, an ambush slammed the platoon.

An ambush is instant chaos. First you dive for cover, then you begin to return fire. It was said, whoever got fire superiority in the first 20 seconds would win. But those 20 seconds seemed VERY long. Sort of like 8 seconds must feel to a Bull Rider.

Above the noise of the rifles, we could hear Chappy. His voice rising octave by octave as he screamed, “Shit, Oh Shit, Damn, Damn, Damn.” Hale said, “He's hit. We gotta get over there.” Guys began scrambling, crawling, diving to the spot where Chappy was rolled up against a downed tree. “Where are you hit?!”

“My peaches! The bastards shot me in the peaches!” Which led, GIs being mostly teen boys with teen minds, to everyone looking at Chappy's crotch, checking his “PEACHES.” Sigh of relief. No blood. Then they noticed him holding something to his mouth. The firefight went on around and above. Chappy screaming at the unseen enemy, “You sons a bitches, soon as I finish my peaches, I'll kill all of you! Bastards shot my peaches.”

Later, in the calm after Charlie disappeared like he'd never been there, the story came together. About the first AK round in had caught Chappy behind the left shoulder. There it first struck the pack flap, through that to the can of peaches, traveling along the can splitting its seam, and hitting the aluminum pack frame then going off into the trees. Chappy said that he was diving for cover when it felt like a sledge hammer hit him on the shoulder blade. It spun him over, and he reached back with his other hand to grab where he'd been hit. All his hand felt was hot, sticky fluid oozing out. He instantly knew he was bleeding to death. Then, by reflex, he pulled his hand around to look at it. The fluid was clear, not blood red. His hand was covered with it. He took a taste. Peach juice! He grabbed around behind his shoulder until he found the split can. When we got to our “wounded” buddy, he was sucking the remaining fruit from the split can, and yelling his hate at the people who wasted his peaches.

Chappy had no broken skin. He had a black and yellow bruise the size of a platter on his shoulder and back. He couldn't raise his left arm for a couple of weeks. He never lost his love for peaches, though.