The
heavily armed Vietnamese village was somewhat dug in, not far
from our base camp and the South China Sea—
It
was a cloud-muffled moon evening that slightly lit the night sky;
I
had snuck in—a hundred rifles, a few machineguns waiting,
should I show my Caucasian Irish face—; I’d leave in the Morning: I had just snuck in
for the fun of it, to see if I could, and
have a night of it, to perk up my
adrenaline. I could have been
Court
Marshaled, I suppose, it was against all the rules.
Not
a wise decision—yet silently I jumped the high barbwire fence
It
all mattered on timing.
The
Vietcong ruled the village by night, the South Vietnamese Army
by day…it was always that way.
This
evening the Vietcong were everywhere—
However,
this was not the real danger, so I felt, it was the guard
towers in the morning I’d have to
overcome—
Manned
by our friendly Vietnamese, not the enemy, but they could
and most likely would, mistake me as an
enemy, an infiltrator
armed to kill—or shoot me just for a
thrill—it was not
uncommon; actually they’d simply be lost to think otherwise.
I
wanted to party, in the off-limit village, find a girl, and have a
whirl.
And
I did, I did just that, drank, and ate some dog-meat soup and
drank until I passed out…
The
ground was soft in the morning dew, pressing up against the
high barbwire fence—at the cue of the
moon disappearing: the
grey morning lifting; hence, I reached
to the edge of the top:
“Don’t
move,” my mind whispered, and I froze in one spot, half bent
over the prickly fence—
I
must have blended into the moment, the guard’s eye, in the tower
nearby, not irritated with my slow
moving sequences, did not
catch my planning—thus, I rolled over
the prickly top of the
fence,
and once I landed on the soft ground, I left no shadow as
daylight broke…
I
must have been in those far-off days, a cat with nine lives, or else
God was saving me for something else…!
#3804 (April 2 & 3, 2013)
