PT V
When the convoy finally stopped we got off the trucks and immediately moved out towards the site we had pre-selected on the map. We spent all of one night there. Late that night, Frydaddy and myself, went to sleep. We got up an hour before dawn and P-Ro and Church went to sleep. Right after first light, Frydaddy came to me (he was on guard and I was on the radio), and told me that he could see a two man enemy recon element. He said they were heading right at us and if they didn’t change their direction, he was going to shoot at them and we’d have to run away. (Our strength is in our ability at hiding, continuing our operations, and running away if necessary, not engaging the enemy and having to move around.) He woke P-Ro and Church up while I prepared to move out if necessary. When it became evident that the two soldiers were going to walk right into our site, Frydaddy started shooting. I ‘destroyed’ our system and then opened fire, too. The other two guys got out of their fartsacks and bounded back. They then started firing so we could withdraw. At the same time, the enemy soldiers did their own withdrawal (they had no idea how many they were up against). We then had no choice to move back to the TOC.
It took a long time to find the battalion. We actually had no idea exactly where the TOC was, since it hadn’t set up before we had left. We ran into some soldiers we knew from the battalion and they gave us directions. As we moved toward the TOC, we saw the same two guys we had shot at that morning sneaking up on a mortar crew. These guys were lounging in their hole, just smoking and joking with no concern in the world. We quickly got on line and moved slowly up. On P-Ro’s order, we opened fire on the enemy. We didn’t manage to laser-tag either of them, but one of them shot Church and his sensor started to ring. We managed to chase off the enemy who now had the mortar crew shooting at them, too. When we moved over to perform first aid on Church, the OC took out his envelope and took out his casualty card. Church had drawn the killed in action card. So, we asked the mortar guys to call us a truck to take our ‘dead’ body away. After loading Church into the truck, we moved on again. Our OC told us that the mortar guys’ OC was pissed because he had seen the enemy moving up and figured they’d toss in a grenade and kill the entire crew. If the team he was observing died, he’d be able to go home for a night and get hot chow and a shower while the crew was ‘recycled’ back into the battle as replacements. Usually, you spend 24 hours in the personnel and equipment holding area (PEHA) and then you get sent back to your unit.
When we got to the TOC, our unit had a resupply of equipment ready for us. In reality, our OC had packed up all the gear we had ‘destroyed’ and left behind. We had to move out to a point on a road and collect up this gear. By the time we finished that mission, it was getting dark and the battalion S2 told us we’d have to stay there for the night. Since our ‘dead’ man would be replaced the next morning, it would be easiest if we just stayed put until then anyway.
So, once again, we were sitting inside one of the biggest targets on the battlefield. We spent the night on the perimeter again. Since we were down to three guys, we modified our work schedule a little. P-Ro took position in a foxhole on the perimeter and stood guard, trading rest with one of the infantrymen. Frydaddy and I would take turns sleeping and working with our radio during the night. I volunteered to take first shift and Frydaddy went to sleep.
We were all very tired, so I had to find a way to stay awake. I put a poncho liner over my head to keep light from escaping. I put the intercept radio headphone on one ear with the volume turned up all the way. I put our communications radio on the other ear with max volume. I put a chem light in my mouth and had my control pad and paper and pencil in front of me on the ground. I don’t remember falling asleep, but I do remember waking up in a panic. I tried to contact my platoon on the radio but got no answer. I had failed to contact them regularly enough so they had jumped to our alternate channel. I moved to the new channel and told them everything was all right. They asked what had happened and I tried to play it off as operator headspace, but a buddy of mine (MC Call) on one of the other teams broke in and called me on it. Soldiers often have a sense of when to cry bulls#!t, and usually feel it’s their duty when it’s a buddy.
After I got off the radio, I woke up Frydaddy. He was happy that I had given him the opportunity to sleep longer than we had agreed. “Thanks Chipper, I really needed that sleep. You’re a good man, and there’s not many of us left.” I explained to him what happened and he got a good laugh. He told me he was sure he would have done the same thing if he had let me sleep first. I climbed into the warm sleeping bag (on LLVI teams, you only carry what you absolutely have to – when we decided that we would carry sleeping bags, we only took two and planned to ‘hot-cot’). Within 15 minutes an infantryman came over and kicked me, saying only, ‘Stand to” before hurrying off and kicking other soldiers. At dawn and dusk, units will put out as much security as possible to defend against attacks. It is thought that most attacks happen at those two times, so max security is warranted. I think it sucks to have to climb out of a warm sleeping bag to defend a unit I want to be away from.