(Ed. Note: “The Point Man,” by Dave Wright, is an excerpt from his book  Not Enough Tears  © July 2004)

The jungle was as dense as I'd ever seen. Wait-a-minute bamboo, lush broad-leafed plants as tall as we were, tangles of vines, and huge trees reduced visibility to inches. About seventy-five yards into the mess, sunlight appeared through an opening in the canopy over the top of a bamboo thicket to my left. Bamboo might be easier to negotiate than the wall we were facing, so I broke my way through and popped into a tiny clearing in front of a termite mound at the edge of a bomb crater. Bamboo lay back around the crater at the angle of the explosion and another opening was just beyond this one, probably another crater.

Skirting around the edge looked better than trying to work back into the twisted jungle. Slowly I walked up beside the termite mound, which was about four feet high and six feet across at the bottom, not really big compared to others I'd seen.

One more step put me on top of the soft dirt piled up at the rim of the empty cone. The walls were steep but stable enough to walk on. The air was still heavy with the smell of burnt powder from the explosion. My squad stacked up as we inched around the twenty-foot diameter hole. Now lined up in a semicircle, we froze in unison, all eyes locked onto a two-foot diameter, turquoise dish at the beginning of the opening to the next crater. An electrical wire led through the space between clumps of bamboo to the next splash of sunlight.

 The face of the large Chinese claymore pointing towards us was filled with bits of shrapnel that would be blasted into our bodies as soon as the detonator was pushed. The electrical wire meant it was command-detonated, and the VC were watching, waiting for the greatest number of us to walk into their kill zone. At any second the explosion would rip us apart.

As a group, they all turned and ran back around the crater towards the termite mound. I was left standing, still frozen. Why wasn't I running with them? An invisible hand pushed me to the ground where I was. The claymore was no more than twelve feet to my left with nothing between its crushing blast and me. I tucked my hands under my throat, hoping my steel helmet would protect them, and my forearms would protect my shoulders. There was just enough time to think this is another really dumb thing to do, then everything exploded.

Dirt, dust, and leaves filled the air for the next thirty seconds. A fast check for wounds … nothing, not even touched! How? A quick glance to where the claymore used to be confirmed it had exploded. There was no time to figure out what happened, only time to get ready for what would come next. The open mouth of the crater would be too easy to toss a grenade into, and there'd be no protection on its steep flat walls. The only cover within a few feet was a small three-inch diameter tree, it would have to do! Vietnamese voices began to chatter on the other side of the bamboo. They should be coming right through the opening where the electrical wire had been. My rifle was braced against the tiny tree to keep it stable when firing, and I pulled a couple grenades from my web gear. My temples throbbed from the explosion and the adrenaline pumping through my body. Ten seconds, thirty seconds, a minute passed but no one came. I should pitch a grenade over the bamboo where the voices came from, but limbs were hanging right above me, the grenade would fall back in my lap if it hit one.

The VC stayed behind the bamboo wall and ran down the length of our column throwing grenades over the top. Explosions erupted all down the line, followed by moans and then screams of pain far back in the column. Alone, vulnerable, and hearing no rifle fire, there was no way to tell where the enemy was. My M-16 was pretty useless in the dense bamboo. No more voices or footsteps meant they either left, or were waiting for us to break through to the next bomb crater. Where was John Wayne when you needed him? Charging the enemy single-handedly wasn't in my script, so I waited for someone to join me.

 Finally, our machine gun team moved up to a large dead tree just behind the termite mound. They were about thirty feet behind. Dust and leaves from the explosion covered my body, and they opened fire assuming there were only VC in front of them. I held my breath and gritted my teeth, anticipating bullets slamming into my body. Red flashes zipped by just inches off the ground keeping me petrified until the gunner stopped to hook up another belt. It was time to get their attention. I lifted my foot and shook it, better to have my foot shot by mistake than try to stand up in their line of fire. It worked! The gunner waved his arm to move back. Crawling backwards wasn't easy, but I wouldn't take my eyes off the opening where the VC would likely come through. He motioned to turn one way, then another in a crazy zigzag pattern.

Back under the dead tree, I puffed and tried to catch my breath. The scene around me started to sink in. There was a scramble of shiny, brown, thin plastic tape strewn over the tops of the bamboo to our right. After several seconds my brain flashed, “That's Dan's cassette tape.” How did it come out of his pack and end up strewn all over the bamboo? My heart sank into my stomach. The message from his new bride was strung out. unraveled, and now exposed to the world, but he never got to hear her. Someone should take it down, but it was too high and too dangerous.

If that was his tape, where was he? Everything looked different. The termite mound had vanished. In its place was a new clearing with green, dust-covered lumps lying in front of the M-60. The gunner had steered me around them while I was crawling backwards.

My mind started to focus a little better and then recoiled as the lumps turned into the bodies of my squad members. They made it back to the termite mound, only to be killed by a booby trap buried inside it. They must have all been looking for me, wondering why I didn't follow them when the claymore detonated. The booby trap had been buried just about the height of their shoulders. because it took the heads off three of them. My mind went numb. I tried to identify which body was which, but couldn't tell the difference without their heads. My thoughts wrenched away to a burning pain in the middle of my back. Was I hit? I reached back between my shoulders and could feel nothing. A minute later another burning spot made me reach quickly to the middle of my back. This time I turned over and looked into the tree. There, hanging from a limb about fifteen feet in the air and still smoking was an arm and a claymore bag. The shirtsleeve was still smoldering and burning pieces of fabric were dropping onto my back. There were no targets for the machine gun. When they shut down, so did my mind.

 The damage was bad … worse than I imagined. Intellectually overwhelmed by the loss and in emotional shock, I wanted to acknowledge the impact but felt nothing. It was too soon to grieve, and I didn't want to sweep it aside by telling myself, “It don't mean nothin'.” This was important. It was huge, but losing control wasn't an option either. The enemy was too close. I crumpled to a sitting position, wrapped my arms around my knees, buried my face, and forced myself to cry, then ended with a vow to never forget. That's all I could do before the remnants of our company began pulling back and reorganizing.

 Medevacs were taking out our dead and wounded, so I stumbled back to the rear. Someone asked if I was OK. It was my chance to head in. The loud ringing in my ears was a ticket to get out of the field for a few days, but only silence followed my blank stare. My squad was dead. There wasn't much of the platoon left either, but somehow I was alive and didn't have a scratch. How could I go in? It would have been disrespectful to those who gave everything just a few minutes earlier.

The last chopper rose, dipped its nose, and carried away the final load of blood and pain. My eyes turned to a pile of abandoned weapons now lying in the dust. They were a fitting monument to the shattered bodies and minds that left them behind. How many did we lose? About half: some, who were just too scared to stay, or who couldn't “hear,” or who had some other excuse. Still, we were hit hard that day in the middle of January. What happened to me? Nothing. But I still have difficulty dealing with the images and numbed emotions.

Our captain refused to withdraw from the field. He couldn't run away either. It meant something to stay, even with half of our company gone. We pulled back and walked into the jungle a few hundred yards down river from the ambush site. It was late afternoon, so we set up a single perimeter for the night. A mountainous thundercloud blotted out the setting sun and cast its shadow over our tiny patch of jungle. Lightning flashed under its darkened face. In the fading light, the cloud glowed and pulsed from inside with each new bolt of lightning. It was going to rain. No one carried a poncho. The rainy season hadn't started and the extra weight was unnecessary, we thought. My poncho liner went under my steel pot to stay dry until the rain stopped. Most of the night was spent leaning against a small tree; the VC were close. Each new lightning strike momentarily lit up the jungle, and a part of me expected, even hoped, to see them coming for us.

 My mind whirled from the terror of the day. I led my squad to their deaths and felt terribly alone. Don didn't get to hear the comfort of his wife's voice in this unforgiving land. It was his first day in the field. Just like Woods. My squad leader had made it halfway through his tour. Someone said he was married and had kids at home. My mind went numb with questions that had no answers. About 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning the rain stopped and I dug out my poncho liner. It felt warm and soothing as exhaustion swallowed up my ability to think or feel.

 The VC had gotten lucky and done a lot of damage, maybe more than they expected. Now they just let us go. We walked out the next morning without further contact. This wasn't the kind of war our fathers had been involved in. There were no front lines. No battles to win. No territory to hold, and hardly any direct confrontation. Not that I wanted a conventional war. But we just walked away and let the VC have everything back, the way it was before we arrived. It seemed the only contribution that the deaths of my friends made were some bloodstains on the ground. This wasn't the way it was supposed to be. How could we win a war doing this?

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