By the Numbers

You gotta love in when things go by the numbers, its just the old one, two three of things that makes things so easy to handle and the idea that sometimes things just go the way you want them to is just, well, it’s a happy time.

So just to throw you off scent, here are a couple of stories about things going by the numbers, no surprise, no WTF moments, just smooth and easy.

19 and late into my first tour in Nam and we had been camped up in the bush for a while, so long in fact, that we had dug a rather deep latrine, nothing to do and no one to kill, you get bored so you see who can dig a hole, all in all it was pretty good, we lived off the land and radio chatter had been very quiet and only a few gooks a day to kill off, problem was we wanted to keep the area clean and the bodies had been piling up for a while now, and then that call, time to move on.

Well, what does one do with a bunch of dead gooks and you don’t want to leave evidence, or well just a pile of bodies?

Dump them in the shitter came the order.

Well that was a bit of a surprise but that is what we did, they filled it and more and then piled everything into a large pile and started the hike out, leaving a radio going full blast and some little surprises.

The hike out was by the numbers, we moves slowly and easy long a ridge then to a river and along that, then over and through an empty village.

Then we heard it, Russian Migs coming over the hill and they hit our old camp, boom everything went up. Such a handy way of disposing of bodies and evidence to have them do it for you, the best guess was that we had been spotted, and they had an eye on us, somehow we got wind of in and bugged out fast before they had managed to get us surrounded, must have been quite a sight, they would have been all around the camp waiting, someone getting close enough to hear the radio going and calling in a strike, now they will go in and find nothing but their own men.

If they find anything at all, after what they dropped on it.

We had about 6 miles on them, they wouldn’t come chasing, it was too close to some strong holds and we had air support.

The only thing that doesn’t makes sense is the length of time that we stayed in the one spot, it wasn’t like it was important, close to Cambodia, the border was quiet and the area was unimportant really, but ours is not to reason why, ours is to do and die, so the saying goes.

If anything this was the reason I decided to do a second tour, but this time I wanted to work as observer, work with intelligence, see what that was all about.

My second tour while I got to work with some intelligence people really had me running my own little bunch, I got run up the flag pole for some reason so, I spent more time commanding than killing. Still that didn’t mean I couldn’t get my hands dirty, I know it now sounds like I enjoyed killing, I didn’t but there is something about doing things and doing them well, not matter what it is that gives you a sense of pride.

We gathered intelligence, and we removed those that would try and do the same from us, and we did a good job. The problem was always the men at the top, and the problems at home made it difficult for those at the top to really put in a big push.

I spent some time in Laos, watching, and waiting and seeing what was going on, it seems there where a lot of Americans there, setting things up for the future, sad really, it looks like greed but it is always the best of intensions that cause the biggest of problems.

Still, everything went by the numbers.