ONE DAY IN THE NAM

Note;  this story was told to me by a friend. It is supposed to be true but may be just bullshit. I think it really happened myself.

   The ambush happened just as we entered the vil[lage]. We were taken under fire from some huts that sat off to one side and we returned the fires. As was usual for such things it was short and sharp, a lot of bullets flying, a few grenades and thumper [ M-79 grenade launcher] rounds and then it was quiet. Quiet except for the cries and moans of the wounded that is. We were lucky. Only a few nicks and scratches for us. Charlie [ the nickname for the VC, from the phonetic victor Charlie] did not do so well. Looking back they must have figured they were trapped and had panicked. Some of the VC were smart, tough, and experienced while others were dumber than dirt. This bunch fell into the dirt category. We got a body count of three KIA 
[killed in action] and another half dozen WIA [ wounded in action] and a few probable hits. All in all a nice little fight. 
   No matter how much we may have hated fighting Charlie or his NVA cousins we always took care of their wounded once the music stopped. Our Doc [ navy corpsman] went from one to the next treating and bandaging wounds while the radioman called in dustoff [ a chopper ambulance]  to pick up the wounded. The last one he went to help was a woman. Yes the VC did have female fighters although they were rare. Turned out this one was hard core and hard core and had been faking it. As Doc walked up to her she rolled over at the last second and shot him with a pistol. Blew the hell out of his shoulder and damned near killed him. Would have too except Doc was short [ almost at the end of his one year tour of duty] and had good combat reflexes. He dropped when he saw the weapon and thus avoided taking the round dead center. Some of the rest of us had good reflexes too. The damn bitch was hit three or four times before the shooting stopped and now she was really wounded instead of faking. 
   You have to understand the value a line doggy places on the medics that we take into the field with us. We were Marines and expected to kill and be killed. The medics were squids [ Navy personal] and not really combat personal. Most only carried a .45 as a last resort weapon and never even fired it in anger. We all felt we owed our lives to Doc or would one day. These guys would walk through hell to save a downed doggy and they also took care of us day to day. Things like making sure we drank enough water and used the purifying tablets in it before we drank. They were the ones that went to the old man and demanded dry socks or whatever else they thought we needed to stay healthy. Anyway you get the idea.
    Now we had this commie bitch who not only cheated and fought when the fighting was over but had targeted Doc. We were NOT in a forgiving mood. What happened next was not something I’m proud of but things like it do happen. Spend long enough in the bush while somebody else tries to kill you with booby traps, pungi pits, and all the nasty tricks chuck was so good at and your mindset changes. You become less interested in doing what is right and a lot more interested in payback. The whore had broken the rules and it was payback time.
   What happened was the only real atrocity I personally saw U.S. troops commit during my time in country. Saw a bunch done by almost every one else but only the one by us. We stripped the bitch to make damn sure she didn’t have any more nasty surprises for us. I don’t believe she would have survived her wounds even if we had medicvaced her but we had no intention of doing so. We were all just kind of standing around watching her bleed hoping to see her die when one of the older guys just decided to help her along. We used to carry what we called pop flares, a tube about two inches or so across and a foot long. By unscrewing one end and then screwing the top onto the other end and then banging the closed end sharply you could launch a parachute flare several hundred feet into the air. That he did was to prepare one for use and as we watched he kicked her legs apart and jammed the flare into her cunt as far as it would go. 
   He looked at the rest of us for something, permission, comments, suggestions, or what I’m not sure but none of those watching said or did anything. He just look down at her face and naked body [ and she wasn’t that old or bad looking for a slope. No tits and a boys hips but not bad at all] and told her he hoped she would burn forever. With that he kicked the flare and it fired. She grunted and tried to scream but could not. You could see her body jump as the thing fired inside of her and then it was still for a second. Her head rolled to the side. White smoke leaked out of her mouth. Her thin belly grew larger just before the magnesium burned through her flesh. 
   We stood while her guts burned out. Then the flare was finished. Somebody kicked her face in and a couple of the men dragged the corpse over to the shitter and dumped her in it. We got on line and left. For the rest of my time over there I never heard any of the men that took part ever talk about it. We heard others mention it from time to time and somehow the story made it to the Saigon commandos but it got twisted around until nobody knew the truth. Now you know exactly what happened. For the time and place it seemed the thing to do. Now I just don’t know.