Snake in the grass

Some where in the northern central high lands: They dropped us into an area where intell said there was a lot of enemy activity.

It was the monsoon season and everything was cloudy and soggy. We set up our mortar tubes and started to dig in.

It was soon dark and we had no time to set up a perimeter around our firebase. My turn came up to pull guard duty and I had nowhere to take cover. I felt naked and very vulnerable standing in the open in darkness as thick as the inside of your pocket.

We were up against rugged North Vietnamese Regulars and we all knew this would be an opportune time for them to hit us.

Suddenly there was burst of three shots from somewhere to my right and I thought: ”here they come”. But then all was quiet.

In the morning I learned one of our guys stepped on a young boa constrictor and the snake started to put the squeeze on his leg.

Don’t walk around at night.