"The Young soldier

In this story I will tell you about a young soldier who had no experience of war were like and I will tell you what I experienced my name is Sergeant Patterson and this is my story.
It was late 1968 the Vietnam war already broke out and I was promoted the rank of sergeant. I was in command of my own squad It was April 10, 1968 I was at our headquarters getting ready for our first mission, well it wasn’t really a mission it was like a sweep basically we were authorized to search the area for any Vietnamese soldiers; ordered to wipe them out on first contact, the Vietnamese were everywhere sometimes from what I heard they would hide the tree’s in small fox hole’s and pop up and try to kill you quickly. Me I was worried about my squad cause I didn’t know what might happen as it turned out it was better or worse than I anticipated my squad was sweeping the area were one of the other squads that was wiped at that same location my squad only encountered many leaves and trees; bugs so after that we went back to base and told our commander we encountered nothing his face didn’t look right when we said that so he said
“I want your squad to go out again and until you encounter anything suspicious and then report back to me” our commander was an old war dog he knew a lot about war, and I also knew that he knew something or someone was out there waiting for us.
The next morning our commander sent out a different squad and I asked him what was the name of this squad and he said “Alpha Squad” and I knew that squad they were a elite squad that has been out here more longer than us And I knew they knew more than us.
Most of my men all they did was fool around and it was not good I told some of them to stop fooling around and to some work like dig a trench and also captain pace came over and I also knew that meant trouble Captain Pace was sometime crazy when it came to war he would sometimes send his men into the front line and charge right at the enemy he came over and yelled “what are you maggots doing fooling around over here hah” and he started breathing heavily and we when he was pissed and then he said “how is your commander hear” I said “I am sir” he said back “why aren’t your men doing something
I said “I saw them fooling around over here and I said for them to do something else like dig a trench” He said “that is a good idea, command your men to dig a trench around the entire perimeter so we have cover incase the Vietcong show up” and my men immediately start digging a trench around the perimeter of our entire headquarters which our headquarters was 20 miles long which that was a killer for my men but soon after that some other squads started assisting us which was some little help but not much and we did that for the next few months many of my men complained that it was a waste of time but they had no choice but to fallow what needed to be done.
After three months of brutal digging our squad was later commanded to go out again for the second time we went to the same area and we encounter nothing again but this time it didn’t feel right After that thought I also thought I heard a snap from a twig behind us in the brush behind our trail and so I told my squad to stay put and a while after they said “Why did we stop” and I said “be quiet” And I was looking and listing to see if I could hear anything else after about 5 minutes I told my squad to move out And we headed back to HQ to report in what I have heard he said “Go out again first thing in the morning at 800 hours, dismissed” I said “yes sir” when I told my squad our newer orders they didn’t seem to happy Later that day I was assigned a newer private to my squad now I had a total of 9 privates in my squad this private was very quiet unlike the rest he mostly was always at the firing range practicing himself how to fire his m16 at long range which he was a pretty good shot the next morning we headed out for our third time but this time it didn’t feel right it was to quiet at that same moment a bunch of Vietcong came out of nowhere and ambushed my squad so I told my squad to “Hit the deck” many of my men were wounded.
I yelled to my men after that to “Return Fire” my men had no Idea where the Vietnamese were and at that very same moment Capt. Pace and Sergeant Wilson’s squad came and counter ambushed the enemy. Sergeant Wilson was one of the only squad to survive longer in this Jungle And has been in here way longer than Captain Pace’s squad many of my men were evacuated by helicopter to base to be hospitalized and Me and My 5 other men were to be joined with Captain Pace’s Squad cause apparently when some of his men later engaged the enemy and about 5 or 6 of them were killed and we later had orders to find the enemy’s headquarters and destroy it to end it once and for all.
What was left of my squad and Captain Pace’s squad we went deep into the jungle to find and engage the enemy but if we failed a air strike was to come in and destroy everything.
Later in the day one of Captain Pace’s squad members found a tunnel rat hole and Captain Pace’s sergeant was to go in there and find out what he could discover and about three hours later he came out and had a map with him and it showed a entire map of the area so Captain Pace divided us into different groups of 5 or 6.
We were ordered to scout and inspect the entire area on the map and report if we have discovered anything and wait for back up to arrive so what was left of my squad was ordered to inspect the south east and we went inspect if my squad and me could inspect anything the jungle seemed to have less vegetation and I had a felling we were going to find something which my assumption was right I was up on this huge ridge and saw entire Vietnamese base with over 400 soldiers and told my men to get down and stay hidden and stay out of site and told my radio commander to report what we have encountered and soon enough Captain Pace and sergeant Wilson’s squads came and called a air strike and bombed the place and the battle had begun.
My squad was ordered to infiltrate the ammunition dump and destroy it as soon as possible so my men destroyed the ammo dup with C4 and then detonated it and reinforced with Captain Pace’s squad to help them infiltrate the other part of the Vietnamese base underground most of them tried to run away, but they didn’t get far they either surrendered or we shot and killed we had no idea how big there underground base was so we told one of our men to call for enforcements, and also told one other soldier to wait outside for the men then let them come to our position once they came to our position we proceeded down the underground base and starting engaging the enemy and also we encountered a room with charts and other military equipment we inspected the military charts and we circling various positions, they were probably trying to find out where our military base was, I was also curious if we’re going to encounter any other rooms, and find any more valuable information.
As we proceeded down the tunnel we encounter several other rooms some with beds and photo’s, and even letters, we found out many of their name’s and many other information about them, also many information we found was all written by hand many of the handwriting we never understood.
We took some of the information once the battle was over we lost only 50 soldiers and 3 medical officers and 60 soldiers wounded, I was actually stunned that we didn’t lose many men however the Vietnamese lost over 350 soldiers were killed 50 or so soldiers fled and retreated with their commander, many of them were killed during the airstrike.
That day it was very brutal though many of the Vietnamese we killed out of the underground base than in the underground base and there was blood and body parts everywhere cause many of Sergeant Wilson’s squad and some of Captain Pace’s men were also with them, me and my squad and the rest of Captain Pace’s squad used them as a tool to ambush them as we lured them out and they just tore them apart.
The information we found about some of the Vietnamese we reported back to our headquarters and they were sent back home to be translated and then if mentioning anybody in their family we wrote a letter to them and told them what has happen to them. Our commander told us we did well and some of our men were sent home, but I had to stay and clean up some of the mess.
After that day I could never get rid of that feeling didn’t feel right, it was like a killing instinct feeling it was weird. Three months later I was in command of another squad in a different place and I knew that the same thing we did the first time will repeat itself all over again and I also knew I would have the same killing instinct feeling and I it wasn’t going to be good.

The End