the last assault on hill 55

a fictional account of an assault on a hill in Viet Nam.

It was the thick jungle. Viet Nam was hell for me and a lot of other Marines. We were all being killed off one by one by these ‘gooks’. We fought back we tried to do things the right way, but it was so dammed hard telling the VC from the civilians, as most of them were farmers and not a regular military.
My squad left out on patrol with a full rifle platoon. The sun was setting that day when we passed out the wooden gate of the barracks area it was like we stepped out of time and landed back in the time of the dinosaurs.
My squad took up the rear of the column. And I was in the very rear of it. I remember that day all too well. I looked back at the gate and there was something about that vision. I couldn’t explain it, it was just a feeling. What was that feeling? Well simply put that once I saw that gate again I would never be the same if I see that gate again.
But those thoughts passed out of my head as the sight of the gate vanished from y sight. I had to concentrate on the job at hand. We took a stroll through the jungle, nothing unusual except that it was two days in length.
We walked through some of the roughest and thickest jungle I had ever encountered. We climbed small mountains, swam streams that could have been considered small lakes. We encountered animals the likes of which I didn’t even know about. But on the third day, we reached the place we needed to be. We had reached a small hill called hill 55.
This unassuming hill would be our home for about a week or so. We quickly set up our defenses and dug ourselves in. We were in combat mode, we all knew what that meant for us. For us, that meant we loved in the holes we dug in the muddy ground. We didn’t move out of them, we ate, drank, pissed, and shit in these holes.
Once we got set up. I wasn’t on the first patrol that day. But I did go out that night though. We had a quiet uneventful night and we all came back with our asses intact and with everything we went out with. We had made it through the first night alive. The dawn came and we were thankful for it, at least I was anyway.
The quiet morning was broken by the sound of helo’s crossing across the valley just to our north. It beat a good comforting rhythm to the morning. I saw them disappear behind the mountain. The silence became deafening again, day after day they reappeared.
Only this time the sound never reappeared. The silence remained and stayed that way, it was the enemy, I knew it, and they were coming for us. I believe HQ knew it as well, I believe that’s why we were sent out here to watch for the enemy.
“Lima 6, Lima 6, This is iron hide!” a voice suddenly came over the radio,” We are overrun! I repeat we are over run…They came out of the bush suddenly!”
The radio went silent for a time, I don’t remember right off the top of my head, how long. but I do remember it wasn’t long. But then it sprang to life once again.
“Do not abandon your posts…I repeat… Do not abandon your posts… you are ordered to stand and fight. I have ordered some fast movers to come in for sterilization.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, the enemy the VC’s had overrun our fall back position, which meant they were coming from our rear. We had no defenses back that way, only the other way. As I sat there I watched s our sentries and other posts began to turn around to face the other way.
“no!” I ordered, not sure why, I just did,” Continue to face the other way.”
“Did you not hear the radio as I did?”
“Oh, I heard it!” I responded,” Just as you. But I told you to face the other way.”
Suddenly one of the line marines got up and walked over to me, where I was sitting barking out orders. He was a big man, big as in muscles and a mean disposition, and an even meaner attitude. His shadow seemed to weigh about forty pounds more than I did, but being a US Marine and proud of it, I never stepped back nor turned away from my foe.
He reached his large handout, grabbed my shirt as it st on my body, and lifted me so I could look into his eyes directly.
“Why do you ‘order’ us to turn the other way,” he asked,” maybe it is so we can get shot in the back by the enemy coming up behind us?”
I looked to the left of his head a bit then back into his cold angry eyes. I took a breath in and let it out as I tried to hide the fear welling up inside me at that exact moment.
“Well?” his voice deepened and got angrier and angrier as the time passed,” I’m waiting.”
“Umm…” I spoke with fear in my voice,” no I am not trying to do that…”
I raised my hand and pointed back pat him and down into the valley beneath us.
“But they would have you believe that?”
He turned around and saw the enemy coming out of the woodline in the direction that we thought they would come from. Once this mountain of a man saw the enemy coming out of the treeline down in the valley his eyes widened out larger than I had ever seen them go before. In fact, it was larger than any man’s eyes went before.
“The enemy’s here in the valley!” came the shout from somewhere down the line.
That alarm was followed by a whole line of marines that seemed to turn their heads all at one time like they were all controlled by the same motor at the same time. Once they all saw the enemy coming, they all froze a second or two before repositioning themselves to fight the enemy before they made it up the hill.
As they finished repositioning themselves and got their weapons trained on the enemy as they slowly emerged from the tree line below. It seemed to me as if the world had completely stopped for a second or two. I stood there with my weapon in my hand for those few seconds, I heard nothing from the world or anything near me. The only sound I heard was the beating of my own heart.
The first beat came and then the world went silent once again.
Then the second came and passed the same way, but it was only after that second beat that I heard that came to the rain of the bullets from the weapons of war aimed in at the men who were only defending their homes, families, children, and their very way of life that had been so roughly destroyed by our American forces after their country had already been destroyed by the French years earlier.
But that few seconds didn’t last long. The gun fore commenced on the forces coming out of the woodline below us. It sounded like thunder as it rained pure death down on these men. Their bodies started falling like so much rain during the rainy season in this jungle, which seemed to last almost 6 months.
To my surprise, the fighting lasted all day and into the darkest night a man could ever imagine. The firing kept up long into the night. But as quickly as it came, it stopped and the night became silent once again.
“Prepare for the assault!” came the scream from the night.
Then nothing once again. The night became quiet as death itself If this was just a chess game where death was on both sides of the board at one time. As before, as quickly as the silence came, it left once again this time it was replaced by the sound of braking brush then the rush of men striking at the defensive line, the whole line at one time. Almost a mile and a half long.
I fought and fought with all that I was or all I could give any country that demands so much from me. Round after round went down towards the enemy, then it went magazine to magazine. And when they gave out. I grabbed the magazines off my fallen brothers and continued their fight from which they had given their very last bit.
The fighting continued as the night got darker and darker. It got so dark in between volleys, that someone, I don’t know who, but someone shot off a flare that light up the valley beneath us. Actually, it was several flares. I stood there fighting the enemy giving him my last bit of strength as I did.
When the flares came down low enough, I looked down into the valley beneath us. That was when my heart began to fail, along with my strength as I saw more enemy tan I had ever seen beforehand, or in any other war, I had fought before in.
I knew right then and there as others in my unit that saw the same thing did. It was over for us. Although we were not gonna retreat or give up, we wanted them to know if they wanted our death, they were gonna have to work for it which we did.
And by the time dawn broke there were dead as far as we could see. But we survived somehow, and that was the end of our time in Vietnam, but in reality, although we left it, it never really did leave us. Well that is until we left this Earth entirely did it ever leave us, and even for men like me, I brought it, along with the memories of what went on in that horrid place go with m