Free Nam Sense by Jr. Arthur Wiknik Page A

and spider holes.
    The shooting intensified and again the dirt erupted around me, so I decided to strike back. Lying in the crater, I raised my rifle high above my head and let loose a full burst of rock n’ roll. I had no specific target, but loaded another magazine and sprayed the hillside once more before moving out to find a deeper hole.
    I saw a GI waving his hand so I crawled to his location and rolled behind a stump that offered enough protection for me to peek up the hillside. I saw a lone NVA run from his bunker but before I could draw a bead to shoot, someone else nailed him and he fell dead to the ground. When I turned back to the GI, he was still laying on his back waving his hand in the air.
    “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted.
    “Trying to get shot in the arm!” he answered firmly.
    “Are you nuts?” I screamed back.
    “No. I just want to go home, but not in a body bag.”
    I had to get away from him. Even though I had decent cover, it didn’t make sense to hang around someone trying to draw fire to himself. I crawled off to hide alongside a fallen tree. When I got there, splinters of wood flew off as enemy bullets ripped into it. I had no choice but to lay low until the NVA decided to pick on someone else.
    As the fighting continued around me, I fired several bursts over the top of the log without even looking to see where I was shooting. It was an ineffective tactic that forced me to stay hidden because every time I was exposed, an NVA shot at me.
    While lying there, I felt the need to urinate. Since battlefield body functions were something never discussed during training, I waited for the urge to pass. It didn’t. With everything that was going on, I actually paused to consider whether to piss on the ground or in my pants. I chose the ground. Pissing in a prone position was new for me but everything flowed out the same. However, as soon as I started urinating, bullets once again zeroed in on my location, pulverizing the log. The Gooks must be trying to shoot my penis off! I had to finish the job by wetting myself.
    Jimmy Smith finally got our machine gun into position and laid down a murderous 500-round burst that sprayed an area the size of a football field. I enjoyed watching him work, but with so much smoke pouring off the gun barrel I worried that it might overheat. The machine gunner’s volley gave everyone the chance to advance. I gained almost a hundred feet before crawling into a bomb crater alongside PFC Anderson, from our platoon’s 3rd squad.
    Lying face to face in the crater, our eyes connected for an instant. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. We looked at each other in the only way that men on the brink of death could. We conveyed a silent message to each that said, “This could be it, but let’s try to keep each other alive.”
    We were close to the NVA now because the crack of AK-47’s was distinguishable from the M-16’s. The frequency of firing diminished slightly, giving us a chance to see where the shooting was coming from.
    “See anything?” I asked, barely peering over the crater’s edge.
    “Yeah,” said Anderson, pointing, “near the crest I can see the dust fly from muzzle blasts.”
    “I see it too. It looks over a hundred feet away. Too far for a grenade.”
    “At least it’s a target. What should we do?”
    “There’s no ground cover, so we can’t advance. Let’s shoot a couple of magazines up there and see what happens. Maybe we’ll get lucky and zap the bastard.”
    Our firing was furious but not deadly. The only thing we accomplished was to draw the NVA’s attention. Suppressive enemy fire quickly rained down and forced us to hug the ground.
    “That didn’t work!” I yelled, as bullets impacted around us. “I think there’s more than one Gook in that position! This time, let’s take turns firing. I’ll go first.”
    We never got a chance to see if my strategy would work. When we rolled over to return fire, I was suddenly sprayed