The Kings of Vietnam: The Kings of Vietnam, #1

Chapter 1 – Jessie Douglas AKA Husker

God dammit! My fingertips clawed through the black jungle soil as I crawled to my feet in the clearing of our basecamp. The last mortar blast from the incoming Viet Cong troops was so close the shockwave of it had sent me crashing to the ground and left about every bone in my body bruised.

My platoon had scattered when the ambush started and looking around I realized I was alone, or near alone, the only thing accompanying me the legs, arms, and mutilated torsos of the soldiers I’d fought with for the last eleven and half months. Hope sprung eternal, nowhere in that mess of American GI flesh did I see Wade Watts, my best friend and fellow enlistee from Ventura, CA.

Before we left for the unspeakable hell of Vietnam I’d promised his young wife Marla that I would keep him safe. And I was going to keep my promise if it killed me.

As I ran toward a small cluster of American bodies gunshots rang out at me from the jungle line. Though the bullets missed they hit the soil beside and in front of me, sending up small boulders, rocks and other shrapnel that ripped through my fatigues and cut open my legs.

Close, but not close enough.

If those bastards thought they were going to get me they were wrong, I wasn’t going to die like this. Not today.

Another unrelenting mortar assault began, with loud explosions and low frequency sound waves jumbling up my organs from the force. I didn’t have much time before I would be face to face with Charlie.

Thick red smoke billowed out of an M18 smoke grenade and drifted up into the bright blue sky. We’d designated the color red to define hot locations in need of air support. Our fire support base was three klicks to the east and had already been raised on the radio. Air support was coming, but I just wasn’t convinced they’d get here before these Marxist bastards overran us.

Another mortar blast hit fifty feet to my right and sent me hurtling to the ground. My hip collided first and I tumbled another five feet. I hit hard, too hard. As the pain radiated through the core of my body I rolled onto my back. A small fleet of Grumman A-6 Intruders cut across the sky, readying their payloads of hellfire for a much needed delivery.

My ears were ringing so bad I didn’t even hear the napalm strikes, though I most certainly smelled the gasoline burning as waves of fire billowed out of the jungle and dense black smoke radiated to the sky.

The A-6’s continued dropping their payloads in an attempt to secure our perimeter from the onslaught of VC. The smoke coming up from the jungle was so dark it now blotted out the sun. Crawling to my knees again I continued toward three bodies some thirty feet in front of me, praying that they were alive; praying that they weren’t Wade, and that Wade wasn’t dead.

I yelled out into the jungle as I moved toward them. Wade! Where are you? Answer me! I was a goddamn fool if I thought my voice would carry over the continuing explosions and gunfire.

Another A-6 dropped a load of napalm, this one closer than the last. The heat of the blast was so intense the hair on my arms singed into crumbling black coils and my skin turned red. If the strikes were getting closer that meant the enemy was too. They were probably hiding out in their tunnels like rats.

I dove toward the three men, fast realizing two were black and couldn’t have been Wade. I turned to the third body, whose leg was half blown off at the knee and twisted around backwards. The bloody stump with exposed bone was speckled with black dirt and sent a chill of fear down my spine. The man’s helmet was covering his face and when I removed it I realized that I’d found my best friend.

I slapped his face. Wade, man. Get up! This isn’t how you die!

There was no response. Wade looked dead, but I just couldn’t bring myself to believe it. I slammed my rolled up fist against his chest but found no reaction, just a lifeless stare.

With my hearing normalized I grabbed his wrist and placed my ear against his chest in an attempt to check his pulse. There was just one problem; over the gunfire and explosions I couldn’t hear a goddamn thing.

The Viet Cong that had survived the napalm blasts now emerged from their rat holes, eclipsing the jungle lines in their leaf green camouflage with their AK-47’s held out in front of them.

In a panic, and just in case, I pulled out a red bandana from my pocket and tied it as tight as I could around the area just above his bloody stump. Just as I’d finished the knot I stood, realizing that Charlie was twenty feet in front of me with his rifle locked and loaded in my direction. He wasn’t interested in taking prisoners. Even though I was unarmed the bastard pulled the trigger and sent a hot batch of lead into my shoulder. He fired again, the bullet whizzed passed me and slammed into the dirt. The pain of the bullet wound was surreal but the anxiety it caused was worse.

I fell to the ground clutching my shoulder, not knowing what to do. As Charlie moved closer I spied an M1911 Colt pistol lying on the ground and scrambled toward it. With my good arm my shooting arm I pulled up the gun and pulled the trigger shooting the encroaching soldier in the chest. As he fell down three more emerged from the jungle. It was a game of Viet Cong whac-a-mole, and I was losing. Our basecamp, or what was left of it was overrun, and in that moment of panic I realized that nothing was going to save me but a miracle.

That miracle came in the form of an AH-1 Huey with a mounted 50-caliber machine gun and what seemed like an unlimited amount of ammunition. Praise Jesus.

AH-1 Chopper blades tore through the air as they emerged from the depths of the jungle and hovered over plumes of violet smoke pouring out of another M18 smoke grenade. We’d designated violet for medical evacuation, or medevac and the AH-1 was clearing the path for the rescue team.

The Door Gunner aboard the AH-1 unleashed 50-caliber fury and mowed down Charlie. The force of the bullets cut the bastards in half and slowed their encroachment on our location. The AH-1 circled the perimeter as a UH-1 Medevac chopper landed thirty-feet to my right side, right by the violet smoke now pushing across the ground like a toxic fog as the torrents of air and dirt kicked up from the chopper blades ripped apart my face.

A team of servicemen jumped out of the Huey and ran toward me with a wooden stretcher. They made it about two steps before a surprise mortar strike blew them into smithereens; one second they were there the next second they were gone. The UH-1 Huey was hit too and exploded in a grand fireball that suffocated the sky as bits of metal debris glinted off the sun and the chopper blades were launched into the jungle like rotating missiles. Other bits of shrapnel found their way into my arms, legs, and chest. They’d singed right through my fatigues like they didn’t even exist.

So shell-shocked by the moment I couldn’t even move. I was flat on my back next to my best friend, letting the smoldering metal eat through my skin. I wanted to die. I’d have given anything, including my life, to make it stop but the AH-1 was heading in my direction and that gave me hope.

The AH-1 hovered over Wade and I before touching down as the door gunner continued killing Charlie as they emerged from the jungle. He put the machine gun down for a moment, and only to rescue me. He ran onto the field of battle and grabbed my shoulders. Come on soldier! Get your ass up! We’re getting you out of here!

Ignoring my wounds and the searing pain of the metal lodged in my body I struggled to my feet with his help. It was now or never. Survival or death. With one last glance at Wade I could have sworn he opened his eyes, but it could have just been the wind of the helicopter blades pushing his eyelids open.

What the fuck are you looking at? He’s dead! As dead as they get! The door gunner pushed me into the chopper where I rolled onto my back as it began its ascent out of hell. He began firing another box of bullets. Spent 50 caliber shells trickled down on me like hot metal rain.

Dad! Dad! Wake up! You’re freaking out!

My eldest son Logan shook my shoulder and startled me awake. I was in a panic and covered in a cold sweat at the controls of our charter fishing boat, the Boondoggle. It was hard to believe that it had been 32 years since the events in my dream and I still couldn’t get over that god-forsaken day in the jungle when my entire world changed. I’d gone from an innocent 20-year-old boy to a grizzled old man saddled with a life’s worth of misery in a matter of minutes. And just about every day of my life I re-experienced it in one form or another, just like it happened the day before, as if the mental and physical wounds were still open and fresh.

Logan looked on at me concerned and squeezed my shoulder. Dad, are you ok? You were whaling about like you do. Maybe it’s time we call it quits for the day.

I’m fine. It was just a bad dream. No biggie. Grabbing my other shoulder I took a deep breath, making sure there was still a scar there from where I’d been shot and not an open, festering wound.

When I’d returned from Vietnam they called this Shellshock. In today’s politically correct, overly sensitive climate they called it Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Whatever it was, however far away it was, it still gnawed at me like a cancer.

It took me a moment to recalibrate to my surroundings. We’d set off with 40 guests eager to snag rockfish and at twelve miles out on the Pacific Ocean there wasn’t a white cap in sight. I looked up at my red haired, freckle-faced son who cracked a smile as I came to. Well, son. How’s the catch?

That’s why I came up here. We’re maxed out on rockfish and starting to throw the little ones back.

Really? We’ve only been at this spot for ten minutes.

Logan laughed. It’s been more like an hour. You’ve been knocked out for a while. Thankfully though, unlike the first three spots, this one was hot. The fish were practically jumping out of the water. Everyone’s having a great time and talking about their next trip on the Boondoggle.

Reaching across the controls of the boat I grabbed my pack of Camel Unfiltered cigarettes and pulled one out. Have you seen my lighter? I could have sworn it was here before I knocked out.

Come on, Dad, you know you shouldn’t be smoking, especially unfiltered cigs. That’s just asking for cancer.

I didn’t ask for your medical opinion. Have you seen my lighter or not?

Logan shook his head in disapproval as he handed my war-worn Zippo to me, the inscription on it read: Vietnam 1969: Life Has A Flavor The Protected Will Never Know.

Flipping it open I rolled the wheel and lit my cigarette, sucking a hot drag of smoke into my lungs and exhaling it out of a cracked window in the wheelhouse.

You really should quit. I don’t want to sit by while you get lung cancer or emphysema or god knows what else.

I snuffed out my cigarette in a steel ashtray next to me and waited for him to leave so I could spark up another one. Logan was a great and caring son but he was getting on my nerves. How are sales in the galley?

Eh. Nothing to write mom about.

Fuck it then. Let’s scoot. I grabbed the black plastic receiver to the intercom system and pressed the transmit button, delivering a message to the patrons below me whose baited lines were sitting on the bottom of the ocean waiting for another nibble. Hello everyone, this is Captain Douglas of the Boondoggle. I’ve got some disappointing news. We’ve got to head back to the harbor a couple of hours early. You’re all such great fishermen and fisherwomen that we’ve hit our limit on rockfish, if we catch anymore we could be fined, so unless you all want to feed your catch to the sea lions I suggest you reel up your lines. One of the crew will assist you in gutting and fileting your fish for a charge, and while they do that the hot galley is still open for business and will be until we reach the dock. A cold beer sure sounds good to me.

Logan looked at me like I was an asshole. Maybe I was. You’re a true salesman. Even I couldn’t resist that pitch. He disappeared out of the wheelhouse down a set of small winding stairs before I could even respond. He knew as well as I, a gallon of fuel saved was a gallon of fuel earned, and the faster we maxed out our catch the better.

As soon as he’d left I lit another cigarette, enjoying every single molecule of smoke in his absence. I flipped the control switch for the windlass and the motor began to pull the anchor from the bottom of the ocean just as fast as the fishing lines spooled back up. It was then that I realized my hands were shaking. In fact, they’d been shaking on and off for 32 fucking years.

Taking a deep breath I wiped a nervous sweat from my forehead with my wrist. My cell phone began to ring; coverage was hit or miss this far out and I was surprised that anyone made it through.

Pulling up my phone I saw the caller ID was my old ‘nam buddy-turned cop-turned Ventura County Sherriff Robbie Childers. I answered immediately. Robbie, I’m on the ocean, man. If I drop you I promise it wasn’t on purpose.

Robbie didn’t laugh. Usually he laughed at my jokes. Jessie, I need to talk to you.

Right, that’s why you called and now you’ve got me worried. What is it? I took a thick drag of smoke and held it in for as long as I could as I waited for bad news. I didn’t know if he was calling in the capacity of a friend, a cop, or both, but the way he’d teed it up I knew it was going to be a whopper.

I’m not going to beat around the bush with you. Something happened last night and you’re not going to like it.

I sighed. I thought you said you weren’t going to beat around the bush. What is it?

It’s Brett.

I let out another much deeper sigh, this one mixed with a cloud of smoke. Brett was my youngest son and at 28 he’d been a pain in the ass for 28 years and 9 months. With him trouble could come in any form at any time and usually did. "What did he do this time? And what’s it going to cost me? Don’t sugar coat