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accurate than the normal
M70 Winchester bolt-action rifles, but capable of delivering a higher rate of
fire, which Simons considered important, since he hoped to gun down Viet
bigwigs in clumps.
Other than that, we carried a grabbag of 12-gauge pump shotguns, personal
handguns, grenades, and explosives. Plus everyone carried at least one LAW.
I was carrying enough crap already, but added an old-fashioned suppressed High
Standard .22
automatic to my pack. Other people, especially Jerry Shriver, also carried
silenced pieces.
Our commo was one AN/PRC-77 per team, but the radios would only be used when
we were closing in, or if we ran into trouble or on extraction. The US didn't
believe those little brown bastards in the jungle could intercept, let alone
read, transmissions, and ignored ambushes that proved things different.
But we knew better, having learned that the hard way. So we'd keep radio
silence as long as we could.
For an emergency, we also carried search and recovery radios, small
transistorized units used to bring in pickup.
Our weaponry may have varied, but the rest of our equipment was standard. For
ammo pouches, we used canteen carriers, which would lug more magazines than
the issue items. In our rucks, we carried changes of socks, and standard
patrol rations, which was a pack of Minute rice, coupled with yummy add-ons
like pilchards, Hong Kong crabs, strange-looking canned meat, and other items
you had to be a while in the jungle to appreciate.
Instead of wearing any sort of camouflage fatigues, we wore standard fatigues
we'd blotch-sprayed with flat black paint, a standard SOG modification. On our
feet were normal jungle boots, and we wore floppy hats.
The 'Yards wore black pajamas and Cong hats, enough to fool any enemy we
encountered for hopefully one magazine blast.
We assembled in midafternoon of the third day, ready to go.
Simons's briefing was fairly short.
He showed us the target, and there were mutters of dismay. It was, indeed,
just on the Vietnam-China border, and was called Hang Pac Bo. In peacetime, if
there was ever going to be anything such in this part of the world, it might
have been a tourist attraction.
Flanking the map were huge aerial photo blowups.
"Don't fuck up and wiggle north," Simons said. "We don't need to be meeting
any Chinese." He smiled as much as he ever did, nodded at Meadows. "Dick's
already made enough enemies on that side of the border."
The contour lines on the big map were close together. We were going to be
humping some steep mountains, as predicted.
Simons issued every man a map, and we studied them as he went on.
"We'll insert here," Simons said, tapping the big map. "Just on the far side
of this little village called Tra
Linh. It looks like there's some kind of secondary east-west road here, that
leads close to the caves.
We'll keep south of that road . . . if it even exists . . . and move to the
far side of this road, here that goes into this other little village, Ha
Quang.
"Call it two days march.
"Assuming, which is a big assumption, we aren't blown by then, we'll then
slide our way to the caves and look for trouble.
"We chanced an overflight of the caves with a drone a week ago, and it looks
like there's at least two companies of NVA Regulars on guard. We'll try to
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move through them, or, failing that, beat the shit out of them hard, then go
after Uncle Ho."
Mad Dog Shriver snorted.
"They'll hear us coming, boss. There's no way we'll be able to sneak into Ho
Chi Minh's bedroom without somebody blowin' reveille. Best we just think about
kicking their ass out of the way from the get-go."
"You're probably right," Simons said.
"But you gotta have dreams, Jerry," somebody said, and everyone laughed.
"If we go in the shitter," Simons said, "I mean really in the shitter, we'll
try to break contact and reassemble somewhere down here, around Na Giang,
although that might not be possible, and we'll pick an alternate Romeo Pappa
en route.
"If we absolutely go in the shitter, and have to run like hell, we'll break up
and exfiltrate, and then there'll be a pickup over here, in Cao Bang. If
things go that bad, there'll be a couple of companies of Marines go in and
take the airstrip there, and wait for survivors.
"Or maybe not. We'll play things by ear, depending on how they go.
"Again, don't exfiltrate into China unless you have to. The Agency isn't worth
shit getting people out of there, like we all know. I think there's still a
few OSS guys stuck in Yunnan somewhere."
Again, there was laughter.
"That's it," Simons said. "Everything else is SOP, like we rehearsed it. We'll
know more, have more on the ground.
"You've got the rest of the day to look at these photos. I've outlined what I
think the route maybe should be. Anybody with better ideas . . . see me in my
office.
"Oh yeah. Some romantic damned fool gave the operation the code name of
Eastern Sunrise."
A few people groaned.
We spent the rest of the day memorizing the photos. It looked steep,
unoccupied, and grim.
But that was the sort of thing we were paid to do.
Nobody had any better ideas than the Bull, so the next day, we assembled our
gear, made final checks as three Jolly Green Giants came in, and boarded.
The flight down the Red River to the sea was quiet. None of us were brooding,
but rather intent on what we'd do on the ground, how we'd move, and such.
We landed on the carriers off Haiphong, and Air Force service people swarmed
the Jolly Green Giants,
giving them final servicing. There were four more already aboard ship, our
backups and cover.
The ships steamed north for a few hours.
The ship's PA system went off: "All Sunrise raiders . . . all Sunrise raiders
. . . man your birds for takeoff.
Man your birds for takeoff. And . . . good luck and God go with you."
I didn't think God spent much time on the battlefield, but there were those
who went over to one of the waiting chaplains for prayer or confession.
And then we were in the air, and headed back toward land and Uncle Ho.
Some of us pretended unconcern, and faked dozing.
The cover for the Jollies was they were making a border flight, keeping well
enough away from the line to prevent diplomatic complaints. If all went well,
they'd follow the border to its intersection with the Red
River, well to the west of our planned LZ, and back down the river to Hanoi.
The first bird aborted after only twenty minutes of flight, turning back
toward the carriers.
All this I found out after the mission was over. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]