Bullets screamed past his ear and splintered the bamboo beside him. Sergeant Wolf Foster, dove to the jungle floor and tried to determine the direction it came from. It was the first indication his platoon had crossed into hostile territory. "Not today, you rat bastards, you won't be killing ' The Wolf' today." Sergeant Foster growled, and suppressed the foolish urge to stand and howl, as he swiftly lay down an answering barrage of gunfire. He wasn't fast enough. Torres took two in the chest. Sgt. Foster heard the wet, sucking noise of Torres' drowning in his blood, and cursed the good ole U.S. of A's fruitless war against communism. The brass would give Torres a shiny, posthumous, medal for his heroism, ship him home in a body bag, and …show more content…
His body spent every night in sweat drenched, remembrance; no matter how much he polluted it in search of a few moments respite from this land of death. Foster's fingers subconsciously touched the shirt pocket holding the photo of his son. He needed the reminder of why he wouldn't give the Viet Cong the satisfaction of dying. The platoon, scrambled to cover their asses, and joined him in strafing the undergrowth. Flashes from the enemy's muzzles, gave the Viet Cong's positions away. One by one, the men tossed their grenades toward them, and the ground erupted. Foster, pulled the pin on his grenade with his teeth, counted to three, and lobbed the explosive in the first sniper's general direction. Moments later, hell opened up, and dragged the 'Cong bastard into its depths. He hand-signaled a ceasefire to his corporal, and gave orders to regroup. The platoon, held their gunfire, and changed formation. They spread into an inverted V, with Sergeant Foster at point, and waited for his signal to advance up the hill. At the first volley of gunfire, Turner, the platoon radioman, had called base requesting air support. Their timing was perfect. The men moved forward with the jets swooping in, simultaneously from
Force CCT Chapman. The aircraft was able to insert the team but again came under heavy fire
They realized they had a problem since no other units were up to the line with them; they had to wait this out. They were ordered to lie down in the tall grass. The fighting started to break out in front of them at a small skirmish line. Many of the men had never seen battle, so some of the men stood up to watch what was going on. Maj. John D. Musser of the 143rd wrote: "… a few shells came booming over our heads, making many of the uninitiated dodge muchly and now and then a wounded skirmisher was brought in from the skirmish line and taken to the rear, all of which had a tendency to make us nervous and uneasy…" (Tomasak,
“FIRE!” the captain screamed. The battle was at a draw with both the British and Americans firing volley after volley of lead at each other. The air was filled with smoke, the screams of dying men, and rumble of artillery near by. Then, all of a sudden the British pulled back and headed to their camp. The Americans were also heading back to their camp. The battle had started 2 days ago and both sides couldn’t break each other’s hold on the other. Both generals didn’t know what to do, but both vowed to never surrender.
“And now, under that fine leader Major C. Allanson, the 6th Gurkhas, of the 29th Indian Infantry Brigade, pressed up the sloped of Sari Bair, crowned the heights of the col between Chunak Bair and Hill Q. Not only did this Battalion reach the crest, but they began to attack down the far side of it, firing as they went at the fast retreating enemy.”
In the passage from chapter fifteen in Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers, is about how the men are going on a company patrol up a hill. The landing zone was covered with Punji sticks which would make your cuts infected if they were stuck on you, Monaco found a mine sign which meant the patrol had kept a lookout for mines on the ground. The company was traveling uphill, while Richie was walking he went through a bush and his gun got stuck with one of the branches from the bush as he thought it was a Vietcong grabbing him but it turned out to be just the branch. The author says, the “mountainside opened up” Gearhart started shouting that the firing was from up the hill. As the Soldiers were ambushed they were still trying to take over the hill.
“Come on you assholes,” He shouts, opening fire by way of a silent pulse on the unsuspecting Germans the result is mind boggling as every living cell is shut down in their nervous system. Headlights are coming up the road and four soldiers lay on the ground dead. A brilliant spotlight strikes his face,
This also enabled 2nd Platoon to secure the POWs. This action was possible due to the extensive reconnaissance conducted by Filipino guerrillas and Alamo scouts prior to the main assault. Both units provided detailed descriptions of all Japanese forces’ locations allowing 1st Platoon to completely annihilate the enemy during the operation.
At dawn, the Marine 1st Battalion, 5th Marines—commanded by Major Julius Turrill—was to attack Hill 142, but only two companies were in position. The Marines advanced in waves with bayonets fixed across an open wheat field that was swept with German machine gun and artillery fire, and many Marines were cut down.[9][10] Captain Crowther commanding the 67th Company was killed almost immediately. Captain Hamilton and the 49th Company fought from wood to wood, fighting the entrenched Germans and overrunning their objective by 6 yards (5.5 m). At this point, Hamilton had lost all five junior officers, while the 67th had only one commissioned officer alive. Hamilton reorganized the two companies, establishing strong points and a defensive line.[11]
Immediately following the set containment pieces 3rd squad moved to continue clearance of the objective. The squad was on line as they moved uphill and crested a knoll during the clearance. As they crested the knoll, backlit by the high illumination, the squad took fire from multiple enemies firing positions, including a bunker and a machine gun nest. During the initial bursts by the enemy on the squad, Sergeant Ryan Olech and Specialist Dick Dallas were struck. Sergeant Olech suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the torso, biceps, and back while Specialist Dallas was shot in the helmet and body armor. At least one round tore through Spc. Dallas’s helmet through his NVG mount knocking him unconscious. As Sgt Olech lay wounded, unable to fight, Sergeant Kyle Oswald single handedly returned fire, eliminating several enemies. Spc. Dallas was able to displace to my location somewhat removed from the immediate fire. As Sgt Oswald continued to engage and suppress the enemy, my platoon sergeant, SFC Crouch moved to and pulled Sgt Olech from the immediate fire where he could be treated for his immediate life threatening wounds. Simultaneously, the isolation and containment elements of the platoon massed fires on known, likely, and suspected enemy positions in order to facilitate the retrieval of SGT
3. “He stood and ran with the others, shooting from the hip, too close to use his scope, and joined the rest of the men around him in bayoneting the frightened Hun until the survivors ran from their trenches and down
The Vietnam War is by its nature is a very unclear objective of the war. That has undefined and clouded missions. They told him very little information about the enemy. O’Brien writes that “They had no sense of strategy or mission. They searched the villages without knowing what to look for, not caring, kicking over jars of rice, frisking children and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes setting fires and sometimes not, then forming up and moving on to the next village, then other villages, where it would always be the same.” (O’Brien’s). The soldiers don't often see enemy fire. The army unit generally walked around doing the same task over and over again. O’Brien writes that “They marched for the sake of the march. They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking,” (O’Brien’s). The Vietnam War become so automatic, that it becomes so easy to not think and just become numb. The location of the Vietnam War, there tall trees and thick grass is easy to hide an enemy sniper. It was hard being a good leader during the Vietnam War because the nature of day to day life become very
It seemed like ages before he was free. He ran back towards the British line, expecting at any moment to feel a bullet rip through him. Then, out of the blue, a single shot rumbled across the dormant battlefield. Ed spun around just in time to see the German commander’s pistol smoking. The machine gunner who had spared his life was slumped over, motionless.
“GET DOWN, GET DOWN!!!” as soldiers come over the hill, gunfire blazed through the night sky hitting and wounding most of the
Once the outskirts were cleared out and no one was found there we continued down that road towards the town center and that church. As we closed in on the town we heard sporadic gun fire to the east. You could even hear the distinct sound of the Germans dreadful MG-42, which we have nicknamed “Hitler’s Buzz saw.” Once we heard that our Captain who leads our platoon yells for us to hurry to assist 6th platoon to our east.
"Push forward, PUSH FORWARD!" He bellowed his voice hoarse from all the smoke. His men tired and sore from being pushed to near breaking scrambled to fill the gap left by their imposing leader. The men sunk gratefully to the ground, with the retreat sounded, their leader had ordered them back to the main encampment for some well earned rest. The leader shrunk to the ground a little way off from his men,