He peered into the dense foliage, past the enormous trunks of towering ironwood trees, and into the murky shadows beyond. Thought, "something's not right." He moved his eyes up and around, then back to the spot. "Got it," he said to himself. He slid easily behind a tree, cut a small slash in its bark with his hunting knife, and then headed back the way he'd come.
From behind a nearby tree his slack man fell in behind him, covering to the rear. In a few minutes they were re-entering the platoon perimeter, calling "Currahee" softly, the running password of the battalion. Moments later they were squatting beside the captain at the company command post, scratching pictures in the soft dirt and reporting what they'd seen.
"Bunker," Risinger said flatly, but his eyes danced, exposing the excitement he felt inside. "Well camouflaged, about half-way up the ridge." He paused. The Old Man was silent, nodding. His eyes, too, were alert, probing.
"There are three finger ridges," Risinger continued, "maybe 30-40 meters apart where the bunker is. I'd bet a month's pay there are bunkers on those other ridges too." He took a breath, "my guess is we've found a major bunker complex."
The Old Man's eyes bored into Risinger's. "Activity?" he asked.
"The camouflage is fresh," Risinger responded matter-of-factly, "someone replaces it every day. That's what threw me off at first, but then I saw that the leaves were pointing the wrong way." He paused, "they're good Capt'n," he said, "but they ain't that good."
The Old Man thought for a moment. Everything fit a pattern in his mind's eye. The bunker complex was on the side of a hill mass that had direct observation on the nearby fire base, barely three klicks to the north. "If I were going to position forces to attack us," he thought, "this is where I'd put them for a staging area." He looked down at his map, "yes," he thought, "this is where I'd put them."
Risinger glanced around at the others in the CP. All eyes were on the captain, waiting. Finally, he looked up from his map, pointed to Risinger, said, "You have done a good job this morning, both of you," including the slack man in his compliment. "Now, here's what we do."
"First," the Old Man continued, "we're going to hit the complex with an arc light. But I also want to confirm what's on those other two finger ridges. We're going to go in there when it's all over, and I need to know the extent of what we're going to find." He paused, knowing that Risinger knew what was coming, continued, "can you and Hutch check those out?"
"Yes, we can do that," Risinger said softly, "but it'll take the better part of the day to do it."
"Take all the time you need," the Old Man said. Then, "I'm going to stay here with your platoon, send the other two back up the way we came. We'll need a secure perimeter tonight that's at least a klick away from the target area. We'll join them when you're finished."
Risinger and Hutch nodded. "Aren't you going to ask us if we want to take some security or a radio with us?" Risinger asked.
"Nope," the Old Man replied, "you wouldn't accept that stuff anyway."
"You're right," Risinger said, smiling, "but you've always asked before."
"Maybe I'm getting smarter in my old age," the Old Man replied with a grin. "Okay, let's go. We've got work to do."
—— ooo ——
Risinger enjoyed walking point. He couldn't explain it in so many words, but the position and the job fit him. It was a position of power and authority in the platoon, he knew, but it wasn't that. "Maybe it's the independence," he thought as he moved gracefully through the jungle, "or, maybe, it's because I can give fully play to my imagination."
Risinger had an imagination. "If you can think it, you can do it," his grandfather had once told him, and Risinger kept that lesson in his mind as he probed the dense rain forest in Vietnam. More than once his canny awareness—his imagination—had proven the salvation of those who walked behind.
—— ooo ——
The Old Man was by no means sure that his request for an arc light was going to be approved. But, anything less than a B-52 belly load of 2,000-pound bombs would probably not be sufficient to destroy the bunker complex, if indeed it was the size he thought it to be. "I better be right on this," he thought, "or the colonel is going to fry my tired ass."
—— ooo ——
It was near dusk when Risinger and Hutch returned to the platoon perimeter where the Old Man waited anxiously for them. Both men were tired, sweat streaking the camouflage paint on their faces and necks. But both men wore broad grins, happy to have successfully accomplished an important mission.
"They're out there," Risinger intoned as he eased down next to his rucksack that he had left behind. "And more than a couple. We can give you 10-digit grids on seven bunkers, if you like." He breathed deeply, continued, "they got 'em in the draws as well as on the finger ridges—in "vees" and "double-ewes," he motioned a zigzag pattern in the air with his hand. "We even seen some of 'em moving back and forth."
"Good enough for me," the Old Man smiled. "Let's join the rest of the company," he motioned to the platoon leader. "It'll be dark in 30 mikes, and we need to get away from here before all hell breaks lose." The arc light request had been approved.
—— ooo ——
At 0429 hours the Old Man's battalion RTO nudged him gently. "One minute," he whispered.
Then, a low rumble began to shake the core of the earth, and it spread outward, ever wider and increasing in volume and intensity. The ground on which they lay began to buck and jump. It reminded him of the Good Friday Earthquake in Alaska in 1964 when he had been a high school senior. Only this time they were less than 1,000 meters from the epicenter. It was awesome.
The grinding, pounding, reverberating crashes and shiver of the bombs continued for 15 long minutes. The Air Force had not sent a single B-52, but three of them.
When it was over, when the thick jungle had absorbed the last echo of hellish sound, it was like a vacuum—and silence rushed in to fill the void. It pulled at his psyche so strongly that he had to stand up, thought, "time to move out. We can be there about first light."
—— ooo ——
As the platoons moved up the three finger ridges the towering rain forest gave way to a scene of indescribable carnage and destruction. An entire swath of mountainside was literally gone—3,000 meters by 1,000 meters—ground to pieces, a jumble of rubble and bits of trees. Here and there were human shapes and pieces of torn flesh and clothing. The place stank of cordite, of wood and dirt, and death. What on earth could have survived this living hell?
Overhead the battalion commander circled in his command and control helicopter, anxiously awaiting the report from his captain on the ground. Back at the rear base a reaction force was rucked up and ready to combat assault into the area if the need arose.
Lieutenant Noll of 3rd Platoon was on the radio. "We've got a live one here."
"Roger," the Old Man answered.
"He's flat naked. Clothes must have been blown off. But other than bleeding from his ears he seems okay."
The Old Man's radio hissed and crackled, "that's the luckiest son-of-a-bitch in Vietnam this day," he said.
—— ooo ——
Risinger and Hutch stood on the lip of a bomb crater, easily 60 feet deep. They looked at each other, silent words passed between them. "We did this. We caused this to happen."
The war was another day older.
—— ooo ——
Sp4 Gerald L. Risinger was killed on July 7, 1970 by the blast of an enemy rocket propelled grenade. He was not walking point.
