To the American marines, Vietnam was hell on earth. The country had been cloven in two at the outbreak of the war, split between the communist north and the pro-democracy south. However, the Vietnamese Liberation Front did not have full control over the south, and the Vietcong guerrillas were active all throughout the region. The Vietcong were the black shirts, Communists armed with FM-29s, and it was the job of the American marines to slaughter them at any cost. So it was that by 1961 the American marines were risking their lives to carry out search and destroy operations; merciless acts which would sometimes culminate in what the grunts called ‘Zippo missions’, which would see whole villages burned to the ground. As they fought, both Americans and Vietcong carried off many innocent victims with them. The Vietcong could blend in among the villagers, but would also disappear into the jungle under the branches of the palm trees. Like phantoms they stalked through the forest, and might spring up at any moment to raise their weapons and mow down anything that moved along the path. This was guerrilla war, and the American casualties already numbered in the thousands: the establishment’s supply lines were reduced to a trickle by the Vietcong’s striking power. Vietnam was hostile territory for the marines – they were outmatched not just in terms of numbers, but also in tactical warfare. The VC knew the terrain better than anyone, especially the Americans. They had peppered the rice fields with mines, whose deadly presence was just as dangerous to the local villagers as it was to the enemy.
The American marines had come to search the village of Ap Bac, though they wondered what they might hope to find in these poor little huts made from palm branches and banana leaves. Their search had turned up nothing, and yet they had torn open mattresses and emptied rice sacks onto the floor, and checked to see if there were VC hiding in the carts. ‘Search and destroy’: those were there orders. Yet they had searched and found nothing but frightened villagers, women hiding in their huts and children crying, and now they left the village of Ap Bac to head back through the rice paddies.
Suddenly, a mine exploded; one of the marines had been hit. The others bolted for their lives, knowing they had to make it to the cover of the bush, as out here on the plain they were easy prey. They heard a rumbling drone rise up over the rice fields – the sound of Vietcong helicopters approaching. Rockets began to pick off the marines as they fled; there was almost half a mile before they would reach the edge of the jungle. Their legs moved at lightning speed, driven by pounding fear, and their minds raced as the chopping hum of the helicopter blades drowned out their heartbeats. They no longer knew where they were, but still they ran; the forest was just a hundred yards away, and there was safety. They were saved! Then, two helicopters swung into view at the edge of the forest. The VC pilot pushed his trigger, and the rocket was launched. It exploded at the feet of a marine, who was thrown through the air into the water of the rice paddy. Another man ran towards him, crying out. The injured man had lost both his legs and was bleeding profusely, but he smiled like a man at peace. “Brother,” he whispered. The other marine tried to stop the bleeding, tearing off strips of material from his jacket to make a tourniquet, but in vain. Another marine tried to put pressure on the wounds. “Let me go!” the injured man begged. A tear ran down his cheek, and his eyes closed. One by one his fingers went limp as life faded from him, each one a death knell as it slipped away. The injured man’s hand sank into the murky water of the rice paddy.
Alan Alfredo Geday