literature

Left Behind

Deviation Actions

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Literature Text

There is a saying you hear a lot in the special forces groups.
We don't leave our dead behind.
For the most part that is true.
There does come a time however when a decision has to be made.
You make it and then live with it.
Simply a decision.
This mission was after a very high value target. A ranking NVA General, personal friend of the Ho Chi Minh, very high up in the party membership.
He was so important, three teams of us were sent in to make sure he would be very dead.
The three teams were dispatched to arrive and set up the shot.
I was in charge of Team Two.
We arrived shortly after dawn when we were contacted by control that Team One made the shot and the mission was now over.
Plain enough to say it was over. In fact it was far from over.
The area was alive with patrols searching in all directions.
We did not hear a reply from Team Three.
My team waited near the top of ridge. Once over we would have clear moving. We would be outside the valley where all the patrols were racing about.
The gunfire in the distance told us the worse had happened.
We could tell from the sounds that two different weapons were involved.
The AK and the M16. They each make a different sound.
We heard more AK than M16 and soon saw the reason.
From our position we saw the firefight enter into a clearing about 600 meters from our position.
Team Three was in retreat and fire mode. The NVA was in full pursuit mode fixed like hounds on a fox.
Now the fox was cornered. No way out. Team Three fell into a circle defense firing in a last stand. They knew their fate.
One by one they fell. I saw their leader fire what can best be described as a mercy shot into his own men. Finally the last two embraced each other.
Only the grenade blast separated them in death.
I watched the NVA fall into them yelling like hyenas fixing to feed on a fallen lion.
We crossed the ridge as the last light faded now safe on the other side.
We left them behind in the jungle.

I reported this on our debrief once back at base.
I was asked why we did not help. Why I being team leader did not help.
While we were concealed on the ridge an enemy patrol was sniffing about coming within a hundred meters of so of our position.
Had I fired my sniper rifle, I would have killed us all. I would have killed my team in a hopeless bid to win what was not winnable.
It was my call. I live with that.
Its another of my recurring dreams I have on occasion.
Their bodies, or what was left, were recovered about a week later. Once the heat settled down.
© 2015 - 2024 Veteran1972
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