Genesis for the Infantry

Genesis for the Infantry

Keith Nightingale

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.

Chapter One, Genesis

DAY

Kipling said the East was where the dawn came up like thunder-and it does-but it makes a subtle entrance.  To the fitfully sleeping soldiers, draped in rain ponchos and resting on tilted helmets, the dawn makes a quiet but clear appearance.  Suddenly, they are revealed to each other as well as the land that surrounds them.  Between the first hint of the dawn and its thunderous appearance, hardly a moment in time passes.  The puffy ochre and white clouds dissipate the bright blue sky as the ruby red and shimmering gold of the emerging sun just crosses the cusp of the horizon.  Under the lip of the rice stubble-rimmed dike, dark is suddenly shunted aside by blinding light.  The short green stems of grass glisten and shine with dew-to quickly evaporate as the soporific heat tendrils quickly encompass the soldiers-now stirring in the quickening broad light.  The ponchos are dew covered, swept aside and quickly moisture begins to form on exposed skin.  The first stirrings of a deployed Infantry unit begin.

The platoon had moved into the position the previous night having emerged from the nearby jungle where it had left its larger body.  The population of the several villages demarking the line between jungle and paddy were the subjects of suspicion.  Interception of infiltration of VC elements between villages and into their deeper sanctuaries within the dense green was the objective.  The unit, a platoon,  had a mix of personnel designed for this task.  There was a dog team and two Kit Carson scouts-galvanized ex-VC POW’s that chose the other side and now provided local insights and translational services for the language and culturally challenged Americans.  Sleep was a sporadic blessing for all but the dog and the KC scouts-all of whom could detect danger better than their hosts. The dog stirred from under his handler’s arm pit, rose on all fours and coughed-as if warning of the coming light.  The platoon began to awake.

The mind-shrouding residue of hasty sleep quickly dissipates as eyes search past the immediate mud enclosure and focus on the various points of the compass-an animal alertness and wary sensing begins to work within each resident.  The glistening cold metal of their weapons seeks the new shafts of light and heat, quickly drying the evening’s dew to expose the shiny polish of worn metal and light oil.  Eyes search past the weapons to seek any sign of concern.  The animal instincts, deeply resident within the group, begin to play a leading role.

In the distance at several points of the compass, across the dikes and silhouetted against the dark green of the all-encompassing jungle, the small village thatch glows and reflects the long light of the just emerging sun. The scouts, well-acquainted with the habits of this and other similar villages, moves quietly and in full view toward the inhabitants.  They will conduct a mental reconnaissance and provide some assessment to the platoon leader regarding the status of the village.  They may also barter for fruit, rice and dried fish if available.  C rations, though filling, do not fulfill certain ethnic cravings.

As they cross the open fields with the long golden shafts of light demarking their progress, they see the small tendrils of wispy blue smoke emerge by each house as the daily regimen of local life unfolds.  They had been born in a similar place and felt more at home here than in the grossly urbanized and dirt-scarred camps of the Americans. They quietly and with polite nods to the first family encountered, walk to the rear of the hut where the smoke is sourced.

The female of the house squats in the dirt yard behind the house and fans a small fire of rice straw and split bamboo.  A small child paws at the ground, naked from the waist down.  Less than a dozen feet away, several chickens and small hatchlings do the same.  A large black pig stirs lazily in a mud ooze filled pen, grunts and examines a handful of greens and rice tailings the woman proffered.

Satisfied at the state of the fire, she rises to her feet and moves to several wire cages next to the thatch walls.  She reaches into the top of one and grabs a large brownish black rat by the tail and lifts it out of the cage.  She deftly strikes the head with a strong stick and while it is still shaking in its death throes, she tosses it neatly on the fire.  She is careful to leave the tail clear of the fire so she can turn the rat over once the fire devours the fur on each side.  Finally, she stirs embers over the entire corpse and waits for the proper level of doneness.  Her family gathers around the embers, all in the traditional deep knee squat-unmanageable and unobtainable to a Westerner, chopsticks in hand in anticipation of breakfast.

While this unfolds, a man steps to the concrete lip of the family well and extracts a bucket.  Wearing only loose Ghandi-like shorts, he pours the water over himself and repeats several times.  Concluding his ablutions, he retreats to a large log near the fire and extracts a cigarette from a mesh basket next to him.  He slowly inhales and exhales allowing the smoke to encapsulate the largest covey of mosquitos now forming around him. The scouts engage him in a casual conversation with smiles and low laughter and offer him a pack of Lucky Strikes-far superior to the local pink papered Ruby Queens.

The odor of this activity begins to course over the paddies toward the soldiers laagered there.  It is a sharp mix of fetid garbage, wet burning thatch, harsh smoke and the tendrils of dew drying in the now intense Eastern sun.  It flares the nostrils with its unfamiliar odor-yet an odor the soldiers smell on a daily basis as they skirt or pass through the scattered villages. The platoon leader notes the point where the scouts disappeared from view while orienting his map.

The village will be scrutinized and swept.  Only in the rare instance of an engagement from within will it be harmed.  The disappeared VC will have to return at some time and the farmers have the sweetest pineapples and most intensely flavored bananas experienced. Cash and cigarettes carry a great deal of weight.  In this environment, small things mean a lot. 

The soldiers light cigarettes and ignite their heat tablets under C ration coffee cans-as much to initiate their day as to suppress the encroaching odors.  Everything swirls together in a miasma of visions and odors that marks another morning and another day’s venture into the theatre of mortality, luck and chance.

Poncho’s are laid out to quickly dry.  The dew on the black plastic arm guards of the M16’s quickly dissipates as the soldiers alternately sip coffee, pull on their cigarettes and pack their rucksacks.  The platoon leader sits on the edge of the paddy dike using the mud berm as a back brace.  Intently looking down at an open map case, handset implanted in an ear, he alternates his free hand between a cigarette and an empty can that once held a pecan roll and now sloshes with C ration coffee.  He makes a mark on his map, returns the handset to his companion and folds the map.  He looks toward the thatch huts in the thin distance and notes the multiple small tendrils of blue-white smoke rising in straight columns and disappearing in the increasingly bright cobalt sky.  Beyond, he scans the deep green of the distant jungle, knowing but not seeing others of his element working for a common purpose.  The distant sound of a Huey beats a tone but its presence is lost in the now energized moisture of the far blue horizon.

Just beyond the paddies, morning in the deep green is a more ephemeral thing.  Light is a subtle visitor that comes with hints rather than a crash.  Form and shape evolve to vision quietly almost like sleep becomes wakefulness.  If not stirred by local leadership, each shadowy form of soldier stirs to alertness and begins his daily routine.  Small soldier noises are lost and dissipated into the many layered organic matter of the jungle.  Less than a dozen meters outside the perimeter, all is in silence less the occasional bird calls and scattered lizards engaging in territorial disputes.

The deep fog that had enveloped the green slowly rose as the new-found sun penetrated the sky but not the canopy below.  The difference between fog and clear was largely unseen by the occupants below-both human and otherwise.  All had been wrapped in a thick moist cottony blanket but it was anestithized to the senses of those residing within its shrouds. 

Moisture is ubiquitous in this environment and ponchos are packed wet and slimed with mud.  Mud that matches the streaks and color marking every uniform and piece of equipment.  Here, morning neither provides a drying warmth or a startling brightness, only a subtle marker indicating a new day.

Skin is moist and wrinkled from the constant damp.  Skin cells erode from friction points and create small chains of tiny white color rings along necks and wrists.  Fingers wet cigarette paper as the glow of the first puff illuminates the narrow gallery of root structures by each person’s positions.  Small glimpses of a blue flame can be discerned with the shapeless forms as heat tabs brew morning coffee-the light sheltered from external vision by the massive tree buttresses acting as nature’s foxholes. 

Slowly, the shapes become discernible as distinct movements unfold.  Rucksacks are packed, rifles are leaned along the tree matter and the soldiers sit upright looking out, quietly smoking and eating their choice for the morning ration. 

As with his paddy companion,  the platoon leader, back to a tree, listens to the radio handset with his map on his lap and a free hand enjoying the warmth of the proffered instant coffee container-this one heated by his radio operator using a marble-sized piece of C4 which had burned with an intense yellow-white light, obviating the need for the officer to use his flashlight as he listened.

With a glance of the watch, leaders in both locations make quiet gestures and their charges raise their rifles and rucksacks and begin to move toward common cause.  Morning had arrived and another’s day’s work had begun to unfold.  The paddy platoon moved quietly but with purpose toward the village and a reconciliation with the scouts.  The jungle and the paddy elements would trade places over the course of the day but out of sight of each other. Everyone hoped for another morning.

NIGHT

Along the open paddies and fields, night creeps upon day in predictable intervals.  In the deep green and tangled web of the jungle, its appearance is more subtle and quite sudden.  How soldiers manage it depends upon where they are. 

The open vistas of the vast flat and fertile fields lend themselves to the theatrics of the Eastern sunset.  Initially a moving melted gold to crimson ball on the horizon, it settles into diminishing vision.  The tall thunder clouds reflect the opalescent quicksilvers and golden ambers of the bending shafts of light.  Dashes of crimson, vermillion and polished bronze waver and dance among the cumulus.  Suddenly, light becomes burnt umber, then a dusty haze and then dark.  Stars begin to appear and the air takes on a thick clarity missing in the day.  Soldiers settle into a slower but disciplined series of habits.

The platoon leader notes his watch and begins to make mental notes regarding his territory an hour before darkness limits his options.  A small field with somewhat higher dikes than others catches his eye.  The field is sufficient in size to occupy his element and it is far enough away to avoid transients but close enough to discern them through night vision equipment should they move toward the village nearby.

A second option, closer to the village and beside a worn path,  also beckons should he choose a more aggressive approach to managing infiltration.  Here, a portion of the jungle would guard his back and hide the body of troops.  It would also require a very clandestine occupation under the most silent of conditions.  In this environment, his target is at least as competent as he.  Dark offers few choices and risk is multiplied.  He asks his Kit Carson scouts for advice and they, in a traditional Asian manner avoid a direct definitive answer but suggest observing, not occupying the village.

In the rapidly descending dark and just before the village becomes obscure, he halts his unit and signals the halt for the night.  Several NCO’s fan out and begin quietly placing their charges in position along the low dike walls and send out pairs to emplace the trip wires and claymores a single paddy field away.  The leader moves to the center of the paddy rectangle and coalesces with his dog team, the Kit Carson scouts and his radio operator.  Less than twenty feet away, the platoon sergeant and medic form another internal position in the opposite direction.  As the dark quickly descends, the unit settles into silence and the small shrouded activities of soldiers at rest.

Within the jungle, the partnered leader notes the time and the approximate onset of darkness-End of Evening Nautical Twilight (EENT) by the military lexicon.  He knows he needs a good thirty minutes to achieve a decent defensible position as well as perform all the many small housekeeping duties that a nighttime halt requires.  These range from eating to relieving to placing out the claymores and trip flares as well as marking the position for artillery protective fires.  Day and night each have their own required tasks and necessities established over time and experience.  Violate or ignore any of them and the unit is placed in some degree of peril-depending upon chance combined with the acuity of the adversary.

A few gestures were made with sweeping arm motions and the troops began to disperse in disciplined patterns to the cardinal directions.  With equally silent gestures, they took off their rucksacks, placed them in front of themselves and laid their weapons across the outer pockets so the handguard wedged between the top and the center pocket looking outward.  Some reached into their rucksacks and extracted a variety of esoteric equipment-moving in pairs just to the line of sight of the new perimeter.         

Claymores were aligned along the several trails leading into the position and arming devices activated.  Some of these were of a clever configuration reflecting the time and ingenuity of individuals conversant in the nuances of enemy discovery techniques.  The most fiendishly clever involved some form of electrical contact trigger mechanism but in the rainy season, these devices had to be managed with extreme caution as an errant move in a driving rain could immolate the designer.

Trip flares were carefully arranged near the claymore’s with several trip wires extended just barely off of the ground.  Satisfied with the nightly devil’s handiwork, the installers returned to positions behind their rucksacks.  In some cases, the unit would dig small positions-in others, they would just lay low not wishing to advertise position by the collective noises of digging. 

Individuals would reach into a pants cargo pocket to extract a bag of day long wetted patrol ration or quietly open a can of C rations with the opener ubiquitous on every soldier’s neck chain-being careful to flip the dog tags away from the operation to preserve silence.  Others just drank quietly from a canteen or furtively smoked with the butt less than an inch from the ground-its orange red tip hidden by the bulk of the rucksack-the bluish smoke moving in small tendrils to the canopy above.

As the quiet of the night and position descended, nature’s light show began.  In the paddies, it was reflective in nature.  Distant amber glows from village fires and the kerosene lamps of thatched interiors-in some cases this is overwhelmed by the bright ambient glow of a major urban area just beyond the horizon.  In other directions, stygian darkness and the emerging sparks of stars shimmer in the clear night air.  Occasionally, just on the horizon, bright yellow green bulbs of a distant flare would emerge, the descent marked by a small swirl of smoke until the glow darkened into nothingness.  In some cases, the flares would be accentuated by the occasional green or red tracer marking the combatant’s engagement.  Some form of light was a constant item in the flat open fields.

The jungle was an entirely different matter.  All-encompassing molasses thick darkness marked this environment.  It descended with a rush and was almost indiscernible in its quick but profound rush.  Everything slowed in the world as the Infantry attempted to manage its internal life cycle issues by feel rather than sight.

Smells became more pronounced in the dark as other less used senses came to the fore.  If there had been a sudden fire fight or artillery support, the smell of cordite would hang in the damp fetid air.  It was sharp and distinct as was the tiger in each man’s eye just moments before.  The soft rotting organic material smelt ancient like a just opened tomb.  If the tiger had been unkind, blood, though now unseen, had a rank odor of its own.  On the fingers, it was sticky and collected the detritus of the position but its origin was instantly known by the person perhaps holding a C ration can to his mouth.  It didn’t help the flavor.   

In position and close to the ground, a soldier began to see and sense the previously invisible.  Phosphors began to radiate green and amber twinkles.  The movement of an insect or small reptile would light the leaf matter and a momentary trail could be seen.  Above, some insects would gather and communicate with quick green flashes within the foliage.  Nature’s light show would continue through the night.

Adding to this sensory theatre, the unit’s higher elements might be engaging in a combination of supporting events.  Protective fires would be established at the four cardinal directions-established by the Artillery Forward Observer.  This would alert the VC as to the night location, but also serve notice that a price would be extracted for engagement. 

Later, after the silence of the night descended, the deep muffled report of harassing and interdiction fires (H&I’s) would awaken the fitful sleepers as they searched and guessed for potential VC assembly and movement areas.  These fires were at worst wasted and at best, lucky but for the personnel inside the perimeter, it gave them an addition bit of comfort in an uncomfortable place.

If interrupted by a contact, the enshrouding darkness would dramatically change with an unsettling but welcome relief.  Artillery illumination could be heard fired in the distance-overhead, the containing shell would eject the flare with the canister continuing its travels.  Rattling and crashing through the jungle foliage, it would shatter the silence and hopefully find impact other than inside the position.  The flare would ignite with a pop and continuous greenish white hissing-momentarily sending wavering shafts of light through the canopy to the participants below on both sides. 

Looking left and right to his companions, a soldier would see his partners-the shimmering green beams exaggerating the hollow of the eyes to appear almost absent.  A glance to the side would highlight the cheeks and the eyes-“I know. I know”- the glance would say and then be refocused on the task in front.  They were a long way from home, but for a life moment, this was home.

In the distance, a mechanical ambush may be triggered in a momentary crash of sound and light.  Everyone would rouse themselves to immediate alertness as birds and small mammals screamed and squawked in surprise.  Then utter silence again descended as each soldier awaited the next act.  Would they be attacked or ignored?  Slowly, absent intervention, silence enshrouded the elements, the small minute light shows re-engaged and the weight of sleep overcame those with sufficient strength to suppress the adrenalin of survival. 

The leadership, suddenly aroused, would grab the radio handset and contact the higher location-as much as to find solace and the engagement of a larger force as to report activity.  The forward observer would be on his radio alerting his battery for possible future support.  The perimeter was alive with quick sudden breaths of surprise and visual focus over the small dark area just beyond each front sight.

If fortune did not shine, shortly after the mechanical ambush detonation, sudden furtive noises would be discerned.  A hasty shot would momentarily illuminate the space with a sharp crack that brought all to a forward lean-faces resting on the wet leaf blanket or rucksack nylon-eyes glancing out of the small slit left between the helmet rim and the ground. 

Suddenly, the air would be rent with interlocking red and green tracers accompanied by the thump and crash of grenades.  Little if anything could actually be seen-just stabbing lights, flashing cones of fire and quick yellow-red explosions.  Each position would be completely fixated on its front trading intermittent light with the attackers-lost in the enshrouding gloom and shaky movements the light described.  Only the descending tree matter or the ascending dirt columns would lend testimony to the closeness of the specific encounter.  Between the high pitched staccato of small arms, the descending artillery protective fires would add their deep resonance.  Tree limbs would shatter and dirt cods be propelled skyward.  All this was unseen to the soldiers but they would immediately hear and feel the effect as the matter rained down upon them and created an emotionally warm blanket of support.

The scratching sound of the enemy grenade being pulled to activate could occasionally be discerned.  The alerted person would then listen carefully for the thump of the grenade on tree trunk or ground and winch in anticipation of the explosion-if it came.  Sometimes, it was better just to not hear the scratch rather than endure the anticipatory process in a continuous cycle.

Worse were the VC mortars.  A distinct CLUNK could be heard over all other noise as the rounds were inserted.  These were followed with a louder ignition.  Then everyone inside the perimeter would mentally count awaiting the inevitable crash and explosion.  Sometimes, in very dense vegetation, the rounds would bounce through the trees, be deflected in their flight and land sideways with a quiet thunk-the fuse untouched.  This was rare but welcome.  Mortars in any form and efficiency are always bad.

Artillery would begin to crash through the canopy with a demonstrably louder effect than that manufactured by the perimeter.  Slowly at first, and then in greater volume as the confidence of accuracy was achieved, the crumps and blasts would intersperse to the point where they created a single overarching cacophony of sound and momentary light rending the vegetable and human matter into bits and pieces of what once was.  As quickly as it began, it stopped.  The heavy breathing of the perimeter mixed with the clicking and slamming of magazines into weapons and the clearing of links from feed trays eroded into the silence of the now deeply dark front.  Voices communicating needs or orders shrank into silence.  In some places, small glows could be seen from recently ignited vegetation but that soon dissipated in the wetness and the area reverted to what once was.

Emotionally drained in the now utter silence, some soldiers would nod off, heads on rucksacks and looking out with blank eyes.  Others, too adrenalized to join them, would just stare to their front with dilated pupils and await the dawn’s light to regain a sense of humanness.  In the perimeter, no one really sleeps.

Light and morning are only gradually realized.  The first hint is from the canopy above which provides some contrast between the light and the leaf matter.  Images become more pronounced as does color.  What was the all-encompassing dark now shows flecks of green, white and ochre amongst the barks and floor.  The troops stir, shake off the omnipresent dew and begin their life cycle.  Small cans or cups of coffee interlaced with Swiss Miss  glow above a blue green flame of a heat tab behind tree roots and rucksacks.  Weapons are quietly wiped with an oily cloth and the fresh wrought earth and chopped vegetation of the night’s encounter noted.  Expended brass and the pull loops of smoke and hand grenades are swept off the immediate living space to join the other centuries old accumulation of matter. Shortly, in less than a human lifespan here, the material will be indiscernible to the human eye.  The world’s largest compost system is always working.

By some silent signal. The soldiers rise to their feet in segments of body parts, gruntingly swing their rucksacks onto their bodies, grasp their weapons, fall into file and slip quietly into the gloom of the new day. Soldiers that only recently had stood on some distant playing field or exhibited their physical capacities to an enraptured crowd, now savored every moment of gained rest and resided on the edge of exhaustion.  Sleeping while walking is a quickly learned craft.  Distant cheering is replaced by grunts and sharp exhalations.  Sweat and rain congealed into identical blots of dampness, the salt dissolving in the exterior moisture to be washed and lost on the epidermus. The clothing and equipment blend into the greenness of the distance as if all of them were just part of the normal organic matter. The silence is broken only by the immediate muffled noises of a unit in motion or the surprised rising alarm of a disturbed bird.  Day and night in the jungle is molded together.  Life and death do not require light, only participation and occupation.  It is a cycle, not an event.   

The paddy and the jungle forces move to exchange environments but not the laws and conditions of light and darkness.  Those in light wish to see the dark and those in dark seek the warm sense of another day’s life on a shiny bright earth.