James Estep: Comanche Six

It worked! They reached the far paddy dike and were out of harm’s way. Charlie hadn’t fired a round in return.

I felt it best to next send what remained of the leaderless and somewhat shaken 1st Platoon. After collecting their grenades, we sent them sprinting toward safety, covering them the same way—with grenades over the embankment followed by an earsplitting volley of automatic-weapons fire.

Again it worked. Again Charlie’s weapons remained silent.

Now it was our turn. I told Moseley, his recon sergeant, Blair, and Andy to each toss a grenade and run like hell. The grenades exploded!

They ran. I fired a final twentyround magazine at our unseen enemy, an enemy that I secretly suspected no longer opposed us. Looking over my shoulder, I saw the others nearing the safety of the paddy dike. I had one grenade left. I pulled the pin, threw it over the embankment, and ducked.

Whoom!

As dust and debris from the explosion fell around me, I jumped to my feet. Now run like the wind, Comanche!

I nearly made it.

I was fully two-thirds of the way across the paddy when Charlie opened up, first with small arms and then with a machine gun. And I was the only one left to shoot at!

Oh, shit! Twenty-five, thirty meters to go. Run!

The sordid paddy water was perhaps a foot deep. Each time a round struck, and there were many of them, the water burst ten to twelve feet into the air, showering me like a tropical downpour. I was soaked. The paddy’s soft, sucking mud pulled at my feet, slowing my passage to safety. My legs began to feel as if they were made of lead.

Just ten or fifteen more meters! I’m going to make it. Gonna conduct this little ado without suffering a single additional casualty. Gonna…

It did not hurt. Not at first. It merely felt like a giant iron-fisted hand had reached up from the depths of the paddy, grabbed my leg, and then in one swift violent motion snapped my entire body as if it were the cutting end of a bullwhip. My head flew back, and suddenly I was gazing at the cloudless blue sky above, watching my CAR-15 fly end over end, up and to the right, as my helmet followed a similar path of flight, up and to the left. I began falling from what seemed to be a great height. And then, briefly, there was darkness.

Choking on the putrid paddy water, I looked up to see Lieutenant Moseley and his recon sergeant lying behind the paddy dike, firing over my head at the enemy beyond. Another ten meters or so, and I’d lie in safety with them. I started to crawl forward. But something was very wrong.

My right leg wouldn’t work. There was no feeling in my leg!

Okay, we’ll just drag it along behind us, Comanche. No sweat.

But they’re still shooting at me! They’re still trying to kill me!

Don’t they know, haven’t they been taught, that it’s better to wound a man than kill him? Isn’t that what they told us at Benning? “Kill a man, and you only take out one of your enemy; wound him, and you take out three. Him and two others to care for him.” ‘Course, Charlie didn’t go to Benning. Silly thoughts. Keep moving.

Finally, I reached the edge of the dike. Moseley grabbed my outstretched hand and pulled me over it, into the foul water of the next paddy. As he did so, one of Charlie’s rounds hit the top of the dike between us, taking out a full foot of its mud wall.

Lying there exhausted, I looked down and saw the ugly white bone sticking through my torn jungle pants. I also saw the sole of my right boot angling crazily, staring back at me.

Something is amiss here, Comanche. I fear your tenure of duty with Charlie Company, Fifth Cavalry, is nearing its end. For if you cannot walk, you cannot command. Not in the infantry.

We were still receiving fire; in fact, it seemed to have intensified.

Charlie, sensing we were in trouble and still separated from the rest of the company by a second paddy, was obviously maneuvering to cut us off.

It was a wise decision on his part; he knew that as long as he “hugged” us, we couldn’t bring our artillery to bear upon him. Movement across the second paddy appeared impossible unless Moseley and his sergeant left me behind. But being the brave soldiers they were, they refused to do that.

However, Charlie had a surprise in store for him. Blue Max was en route.

Blair and Andy had already reached the company’s perimeter, as they were told to do. Hence, I was without my communications link with battalion—an unforgivable sin on the part of a rifle company commander.

Shame on me again.

Using the recon sergeant’s radio, I attempted to contact battalion through the fire-control net.

“Arizona Three, this is Comanche Six. Over.”

“Comanche, this is Lime Light. Go to Arizona push. Out.”

Twisting, struggling, the recon sergeant and I managed to maneuver ourselves into a posture that allowed me access to the frequency knob atop the radio on his back. I quickly changed the set’s frequency to battalion’s push, wondering in the process just who the hell Lime Light might have been.

“Arizona Three, this is Comanche Six. Over.”

Colonel Lich responded immediately.

“This is Arizona Six. Roger, we have dust off and Blue Max on the way. How bad are you hit?”

How does he know that?

“This is Comanche Six. Uh… don’t really know, but don’t think I’ll be doing much humping for a while.”

“This is Arizona Six. Okay, hang on. I’m en route. Out!”

Then the leg started to hurt! Oh, God, it started to hurt! It was like every single nerve ending was on fire. And, I casually observed, my arms were covered with the leeches that inhabit the Nam’s paddies. Leave ’em alone and let ’em suck. They’re probably all over you anyway, and there’s no bug juice handy.

Lieutenant Moseley, in the meantime, began bringing red leg in behind Charlie, creeping the rounds forward toward us. Before the day was over, the enemy of Xom Dong My would dearly wish this young lieutenant had never been born.

“Tall Comanche, this is Blue Max Lead inbound. Request smoke. Over.”

Moseley’s recon sergeant tossed a yellow smoke across the top of the paddy dike, and within a matter of seconds Blue Max was back on the air.

“Roger, Comanche. I see your banana. Where are the bad guys?”

“This Comanche Six. We’re hugging the smoke. Other friendlies to our southwest. Enemy dug in across next paddy dike to our northeast. Uh… about forty, fifty meters at forty-five degrees. Copy?”

“This is Blue Max, and that’s a Roger. See the dike and flashes. We’ll be coming in west to east with rockets and minigun. Keep your heads down.”

Whoom! Whoom! Whoom!

Give it to ’em, Blue Max! Tear ’em apart! Kill those sonofabitches.”

As the Cobras began their second firing run, the three of us started crawling along the edge of the dike toward the company’s perimeter. Our progress was slow, painful! Suddenly Sergeant Naple, Two Six’s platoon sergeant, was kneeling at my side. Naple! What the hell is he doing here? He’s with Two Six, a world away.

Smiling down at me, he said, “Sir, if it won’t be bothering you too much, I’m gonna get you out of this shit.”

He grabbed the back of my suspenders and began running across the paddy, dragging me behind him as the enemy’s rounds popped over our heads. God, it hurt! Then, passing a clump of bamboo adjacent to the dike, I saw Wester jump out of the foliage, fire two quick rounds from his M-79, and fall in behind us.

Wester! What’s he doing here? Brave men, Naple and Wester. Brave men, indeed!

We made it. And then Doc Heard pounced on me. “I told you, sir! Again and again, I told you. Always want to travel with the point. Always want to see what’s happening. Well, I told you sooner or later something like this was gonna… goddamn it, I told you!”