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Faith
For verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you.
-- Matthew 17:20
Soldiers in the Vietnam War scrawled slogans on their helmet covers, these according to the temperament and sentiments of the individual. Catchphrases such as "Kill! Kill! Kill!" and "Kill 'Em All, Let God Sort 'Em Out" were popular for those soldiers who were new in-country and had not yet confronted the reality of combat. Helmet graffiti changed dramatically as newbies became veterans. Crude inked-in Christian crosses appeared, along with "You and Me, God" and "Yea I Walk Through the Valley of the Shadow of Death."
It should not be surprising that soldiers turn to God to bring reason to chaos and sanity to madness when they live with death all around them. One reporter embedded with American troops in Iraq in 2004 asserted that not a single soldier he'd talked to was not seeking a stronger connection to God. Scorched by the fires of war, many warriors discover faith that has been missing from their lives. Others gain a greater sense of God. Few are not in some way touched by the supernatural as they struggle for understanding, comfort, and protection.
"In my...experience," noted Arthur Kammerer, 102nd Infantry Division, World War II, "I've seen [combat] make killers out of some, cowards of some, Christians of most."
Army Private Paul Curtis may have said it best. After being pinned down at Anzio, Italy, in May 1944, he tried to explain combat in a letter to his brother.
"It's beyond words," he wrote. "Take a combination of fear, anger, hunger, thirst, exhaustion, disgust, loneliness, homesickness, and wrap that all up in one reaction....It's a comfort to know there's One Who is present at all times and...ready to help you through....Without faith [in God], I don't see how anyone could stand this."
Marine Lance Corporal Nathan Jones,
Vietnam, 1968
Just another day in 'Nam. "Death Defying Delta" Company, redubbed by "Chargin' Charlie" Company as "Dyin' Delta," moved out of Camp Evans in the late afternoon and slogged at a forced pace down the dusty road toward the village of Cam Lo some five klicks (kilometers) away. About three miles. An Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) company had stumbled onto a company of North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and got itself pinned down. Dyin' Delta expected to kick some serious ass, drag Marvin the ARVN's bacon out of the fire, and be back within Evans's wire-and-bunker perimeter by nightfall.
Marine Lance Corporal Nathan Jones, a wiry kid from Oklahoma, glanced back up the road at the black snouts of a 155mm howitzer battery silhouetted against the white-hot afternoon sky. He shifted the M-60 machine gun to a more comfortable position across his shoulder; he would trade out the gun later with his assistant gunner, a new in-country cherry called Bill. He wondered what they would be having for evening chow when they returned to Evans. NVA and Viet Cong (VC) rarely stood up to a Marine company on the prod.
Although only nineteen, Jones was one of the vets in the outfit, having just completed Operation Pecos to kick the enemy out of Khe San and back across the border into North Vietnam. He had been wounded there, a glancing head blow that earned him a certain respect in the Marines and, along with a quarter, a cup of coffee back in the States.
Cam Lo, a typical village of straw or tin huts, sat clustered between the road and rice paddy squares sectioned off by hedgerows of mangrove. Marines trudged into one side of the settlement and out the other, scattering pigs, geese, chickens, and bare-assed little kids. If ARVN was in contact out there, it was one quiet contact. Most likely, the NVA had already pulled up stakes and hauled out.
About a kilometer beyond the village, platoon leader Lieutenant Been ordered Jones and his A-gunner to set up their M-60 in rear security. Ordinarily, three Marines made up a machine gun crew, but Jones's section was short a man. That left him and Bill. While the rest of the company forged ahead to check on Marvin, the two Marines bipodded the M-60 in a hedgerow that overlooked a dry-season rice paddy. A 7.62mm M-60 machine gun, the infantry grunt's primary defensive weapon, was capable of chewing up terrain and flesh at five hundred rounds per minute out to a maximum effective range of 1,100 meters.
Dyin' Delta melded into the landscape, out of sight and sound. Shadows grew long. Jones watched the sun turn red as it sank into the horizon. Mosquitoes buzzed around his helmet.
Suddenly, all hell busted loose from the direction of Delta Company's advance. It started with the distant loose rattle of AK-47s in groups, the cyclic chop of enemy 51mm machine guns, the crash and bang of rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. Marines responded with M-16s, M-60s, and light mortars. It was immediately apparent that Delta was clashing with an enemy force far greater in size than its own -- and that that force was standing up and determined to wipe out the Americans in full-scale battle.
Outside the perimeter of the fight, a klick away, Lance Corporal Jones and his A-gunner could do nothing but listen to the discordant thunder of the engagement and keep a nervous eye peeled into the gathering darkness to make sure no additional enemy moved in from the rear. As the fighting raged back and forth, Jones listened with alarm and dread as one M-60 after another ceased its chugging. Soon, all of Delta's M-60s were quiet, either killed, knocked out, or jammed. By comparison, the tinny cacophony of M-16 rifles sounded ineffectual and last-stand desperate.
What in hell had Delta walked into out there?
Darkness clasped the land firmly in its fist. Artillery from Camp Evans poured high explosives (HE) into the fray, trembling the earth and choking the air with smoke and dust. Illumination flares filled the sky like fierce miniature suns, skittering fearsome shadows like shape-shifters. From out of these shadows and light appeared a runner crawling, ducking, and dodging, shouting the password repeatedly to prevent being shot by rear security. He collapsed next to Lance Corporal Jones, panting, his eyes wide with terror.
"We walked into a battalion, a U-shaped ambush," he gasped. "Jones, the captain says you got to get your gun up there. It's the only one left. Jones, they're killing us! They're killing us all!"
Like good Marines whose buddies were in trouble, the two machine gunners grabbed their vital weapon and ammo and took off with the runner guiding them. They eluded NVA fighters several times in the darkness as the enemy began closing the trap around Delta. Breaking through the defensive perimeter, Jones was stunned by the numbers of dead and wounded dragged to a casualty collection point near a thicket of mangrove. Their moans and cries pulsed the night air. Dyin' Delta was living up to its name. It departed Camp Evans with 180 men; only eighty would return.
Lieutenant Been met the gun crew. He was a big man with courage to match. But tonight, like everyone else, he was scared. He directed Jones to the front of the ambush where the M-60 could do the most damage against concentrated attackers. Parachute flares blazed overhead. Howitzer shells banged around the outside perimeter, but to little effect since the enemy was close in and hugging Marine lines.
"Tanks are on the way, but they're not going to get here in time," Lieutenant Been explained. "We're surrounded, but the company is going to break out and leapfrog by platoons back toward Cam Lo. Our platoon will set up a base of fire to cover the rest of the company while it busts out. Then the company will set up and cover our asses while we pull back. Jones, we gotta hold the bastards. Understand?"
Muzzle fire twinkled from all sides as the ruthless NVA closed in. From the protection of a dike, Jones lay down a cyclic rate of fire while Bill fed belts to the gun, raking the machine gun back and forth, spraying steel and lead and death into the thickest concentrations of muzzle flicker, weaving red tracers like streaks of lasers. Lieutenant Been and Sergeant Jackson, the platoon gunny, fought desperately on either side of the M-60, emptying magazines of 5.56 through their M-16s. Jones was so absorbed in the brutal business of killing that Lieutenant Been's sudden exclamation failed to sink in for a moment or two.
"My God, they've left us!"
Jones's head snapped around. The eerie ghost light of parachute flares hanging against the black sky revealed their plight to be even more grave than they could ever have imagined. Orders had apparently been misunderstood in all the confusion and chaos. The stay-behind platoon had withdrawn with the rest of the company, leaving only four Marines behind to hold off an entire battalion of hard-core, pissed-off NVA: Lance Corporal Jones, his A-gunner Bill, Lieutenant Been, and Sergeant Jackson.
Terror jolted Jones's body like lightning. Violent death could be the only outcome of this screw-up.
"Let's get out of here!" Been hissed.
Jones leapt to his feet with the M-60 and its last belt of ammunition. Firing from the hip, he backed away from the dike, wheeled around, then bolted with the other three Marines across a rice paddy in a reckless bid to catch up with the retreating Delta. Maybe they had a chance if they could reach the hedgerow on the other side. Bullets lashed out at them from all angles, snapping. Green tracers threatened to entangle them in spider webs.
Run! Run! Run!
In their haste to decamp, they raced headlong into a squad of enemy soldiers left in the hedgerow to snare stragglers. The NVA opened fire with a startling crash of point-blank AK-47 fire. The four Marines hit the dirt. By some miracle, none of them was hit, although they found themselves in one awkward position -- marines on one side of the hedgerow, gooks on the other. They had to go through the Viets in order to catch up with the company.
Muttering...
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
