Doug: This was my morning.

“At approximately 0610 this morning, Bulldog squad one came into contact with a squad sized enemy force in quadrant alpha, grid point thirty seven.” Our squad leader, Jordan Harris, shined a flashlight on his map, indicating the aforementioned grid point. Several guys nodded, including myself. It was an area we had patrolled before, and knew well. Harris continued, “They have radioed requesting ammunition re-supply.” He took a deep breath. “They also have wounded Marines.” A low snarl ran around the squad at that.
Harris nodded. “I know. Ammo dump is here.” He indicated another point on the map, also familiar. “Our mission is to move from Battalion HQ, to the Ammo dump, move to Bulldog 1’s position, re-arm them and assist in their mission. Helicopter extraction point is here.” Another X on the map. “Bulldog 3 has the same mission, but is taking an alternate route in order to ensure success.”
Bulldog 3’s route is not indicated on the map, I consider asking for it, in case we needed to rescue them too, but Harris anticipates the question and says: “I do not have Bulldog 3’s route. So unless they radio for help, both they and we are on our own.”
A few unhappy grunts greeted the information, but no bothered to bitch about HQ’s policy of ‘need to know basis.’ There wasn’t any point. Harris glanced at his watch. “Time on deck is now 0625. We leave at 0630, buddy checks.”
I turned to the Marine next to me, Donte Larry and gave him a quick once over, ensuring that he had all his gear. He did the same for me and we wordlessly bumped fists and smiled. We’d been squad buddies for so long we could almost read each other’s thoughts. Larry was wound up, like he always was before a mission. He retied his boots just to give himself something to do. Similarly, he could see the eagerness in my eyes that I locked away with an effort. This wasn’t a game, there was a job to be done, and we could very well be dead at the end of this.
I surveyed Bulldog 2 while we waited for the final word to come down. Our squad was small, a victim of attrition in a combat zone. Staff Sergeant Pederson, to the eye a skinny white guy, but he was also the strongest and toughest Marine I’d ever seen. He knew unequivicably how to push though pain and keep going. His endless motivation never to lose kept the team up and fighting even when we were exhausted. He was deadly serious now, arms folded across his chest, surveying everyone else, watching for screw ups. Fortunately for us, we all knew our business.
Next to him was a short Marine, built like a barrel, a very solid barrel. Another Staff Sergeant, Ben Poaster was on loan to us from the scout snipers. He was the antithesis of what you’d expect a scout sniper to be. Cheerful in disposition, he was cracking jokes to Pederson, who occasionally cracked a smile on that icy face of his.
Yu and Yi stood together, both Korean immigrants who had joined the Corps. Both were quiet, Yu out of habit, Yi out of nervousness. He was new, and shifted from foot to foot anxiously. There was a running joke in the platoon that the next guy to arrive would be a Me, to complete our triangle of Li, Yi, and Yu.
Speaking of Li, the slightly built Lance Corporal was busy checking the stretcher attached to Lewis’s pack. Li was a mix of races, his facial and body type was very Anglo European, but his light brown skin and almond shaped eyes revealed the Asian in him. Sarah Lewis, was just a shade darker, and about three inches shorter. The toughest (and only) female in the squad, she easily beat out other male members at physical competitions. She never had any trouble earning anyone’s respect, all you had to do was ask to arm wrestle.
My shoulder gave a twinge at the thought. Last but not least was our Squad Leader, Jordan Harris, and John Winslow. Jordan and Larry were the only two black members of the platoon, and both of them were half black. The joke was that two halves made a whole, so we only had one black guy period. Dumb, but funny. John was the tallest member of the squad, towering over the rest of us at a six feet, five inches. In full armor he looked absolutely terrifying, but was actually one of the nicest guys you would ever meet. He was quiet and his voiced twanged with the slightest of country accents.
Harris, who had been talking into the radio, made his way over, checking his watch. “Time to move, and guys…” He paused, “There’s reports of them taking sniper fire, so keep your heads low.”
All eyes swung to Winslow, who stuck out like a sore thumb, even in camouflage. He shrugged, acknowledging the risk. Part of the business; eyes swung back to Harris.
“Move out!”
We double timed it for the jungle, in a column, Pederson and Poaster, the most experienced out of all of us moving through on either side, flanking and looking for any hint of an ambush. Several times Poaster raised his hand in the classic ‘freeze and shut up’ position. Instant obedience characterized our reactions, weapons raised, eyes flicking over the dense foliage.
We made it to the Ammo dump with little trouble. The friendly guards there loaded us up and sent us on our way, we were now moving over open ground and could see and hear the firefight from Bulldog one.
By now the exertion of our movement had begun to take its toll. Running in combat boots is no joke, but running through foliage in them is just murder, add gear, weapons and now thirty pound ammunition cans to the mix and we had to slow down, otherwise we were going to lose someone to heat exhaustion.
Yi, the new guy, was having a hard time keeping up. Lewis shouldered her rifle and grabbed his ammo can, allowing the squad to move at an acceptable pace though we lost potential firepower. After crossing a wood bridge, Poaster realized we were inside a minefield, and it was a miracle none of us were dead yet.
“Freeze!” he yelled, throwing his arm up in a belated gesture. I looked down.
“Shit.” That was Larry.
“Nobody move a fucking inch unless I tell you to.” Pederson snapped. He glanced around him and very, very carefully began to move people back to the edge of the minefield. When Lewis, the person in front and the last person out, finally made it, Harris was consulting the map.
“That minefield is between us and Bulldog one, we’re going to have to go around it.”
Minor swearing, this added at least ten minutes to our projected ETA, the firefight we could hear across the minefield was getting more intense, with fewer cracks of M-16’s mixed in with the ever increasing sharper snaps of AK rounds.
“Let’s move then.” Winslow said, his country twang more pronounced in the high stress environment.
Pederson glanced significantly at Yi, who was bent over and throwing up.
Just that moment we heard the *zing-hiss* of a round passing close to us and a grunt of pain.
“Sniper, Pederson , Poaster and Li all yelled at once and we dived for cover. Glancing around from behind my tree I muttered a litany of swearwords that would have made a sailor blush. Snipers are hell for infantry units. One sniper can tie up an entire platoon for the better part of a day if he’s good.
“Roll call, anyone hit?” Harris yelled.
“Winslow’s down!” Lewis yelled, pulling the what I hoped was unconscious and not dead form of Winslow into cover with her.
“I got the sniper.” Poaster’s voice was a few octaves lower than normal, and devoid of any life. I glanced over at him and wished I hadn’t. His eyes were cold, and glaring down the scope of his rifle. “Just poke your head up one more time you son of a-” His rifle cracked. A second later: “He’s down, get Winslow on that stretcher.”
Lewis and Li were already on it, Pederson rushing to their side.
“Still breathing! Li yelled.
Harris pointed to Larry, who had the radio gear. “Call for a medevac.”
Larry nodded and spoke a few lines into the set attached to his back. After thirty seconds of me watching the trees and listening to his one sided conversation he shouted over to Harris, “There’s a clearing about a half a click north of here. It’s big enough for the evac chopper, and on our way around this minefield!”
Harris nodded, “Let’s move.”
Pederson took the back end of the stretcher by himself, with Lewis and Li on the front end. We’d slung the ammo cans on top of Winslow’s unconscious body, in order to make us move faster and free up more firepower.
The helicopter, a Little Bird, zoomed in over the trees just as we entered the clearing. Harris waved it down and we deposited Winslow’s stretcher on it. It roared away, and we continued on our mission without stopping. Ten minutes later we encountered an irrigation ditch that was too wide to jump.
“Oh balls.” Lewis whispered as we plowed without pause into the ditch. She hated swimming.
The water was ice cold, and smelled awful. My long legs hit bottom and I began to sink, raising my ammo can above my head to keep it dry. The official bottom must have been no deeper than three feet, but an additional three feet had piled up over the years, in the form of silt, the weight of the ammo can over my head was causing me to sink upto my eyeballs. Larry, ahead of me, indicated that I should toss my can to him, swim ahead, and then repeat the movement. Just as I sunk beneath the water I tossed the can.
The mixture of stagnant water, birdshit, fertilizer and god knows what else stung my eyes as I kicked off the bottom, hard. The mud sucked at me, trying to keep me down, but sheer momentum carried me through to the surface. There was no way after all that shit was I going to die drowning. Larry was ahead of me, doing his own sinking maneuver.
I moved to get ahead of him, trying to get there before his head went under. I just barely made it. We did this twice more to get ashore on the other side. Lewis, the shortest, was the only one who sank fully into the muck, still managing to hold the ammo can in the air.
Sopping wet, we hit the beach, growling angrily. Our objective is now within reach, and we can see the Marines in Bulldog 1 pinned down behind makeshift barricades. They were clearly hurting for ammunition. Bullets snarled past us and Poaster yelled for us to hit the deck yet again. I was getting tired of the ground. The field we were in smelled of duck shit and rotting compost. Barely audible, I heard Yu mutter, “This shithole smells like Korea.” Yi grunted, seemingly the extent of his verbal capabilities after our run.
Low crawl for a hundred yards and the Marines in Bulldog 1 were back in business. Automatic rifle fire bit out at an increasing pace. Our combined firepower demolished the enemy positions, and it was only half an hour later the helicopter pickup thumped over our heads.
Larry and I sat next to each other on the copter’s landing struts. His eyes scanned the brush, watching for anything hostile. I glanced at my watch. “Time on deck’s 0800.” I said, conversationally.
“That only took an hour and a half?”
“Yep.”
He sighed, and leaned his head back against his pack. “Another day in the life, man.”
I grunted, “You can’t tell me that wasn’t fun.”
We laughed together, the genuine humor feeling good after the stress of battle. “I think it might be a long day.” He said, watching the trees that were now below us.
“That’s the job.”