Men in Green Faces Read Free Page A

settled into green or gray metal folding chairs. The SEALs lounged in them, some tilted back against the plywood walls. They looked completely relaxed. Gene Michaels, at the rear, had his head propped on one hand, his other arm across the back of an empty chair, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and his M-60 slung, hanging at his side, but his concentration was total, focused on the seventh SEAL, Jim Henshaw, patrol leader for this operation.
    Nobody took notes. Everything pertaining to the operation, their parts and the other men’s parts, had to be committed to memory. Except for the sound of Jim’s voice and an occasional shift in someone’s position, the room was silent.
    Jim paced in front of the blackboard and situation map, both permanently attached to the wall behind him. The situation map showed all past operations run in any particular area; the locations were marked by colored pins. Red meant heavy enemy contact at that coordinate. Yellow signified light contact. Green, no contact. There were very few green pins among the fields of red and yellow.
    Gene, scanning the map, focused on a particular green pin, thought of Doc, and couldn’t help but grin. That op had been a honey.
    They’d inserted in early afternoon, and the seven of them were about an hour into the jungle with another hour and a half to their objective, a tiny Viet Cong village. Intelligence had it that the village hosted an NVA encampment. The SEAL squad headed in to check the situation out. If the NVA had indeed moved in, the SEALs would call in the coordinates, their helo gunships would bear down, and the whole area would disappear.
    As always, Gene remembered the heat. Patrolling through dense foliage beneath the three ascending heights of trees, the tallest hidden from sight by the two levels below, they’d sweltered in the dim light under the triple-canopy jungle. The heat joined with the deep, stinking mud and the insects to make the squad truly miserable. None more so than Doc, walking rear security, whose face made plain that he was one unhappy corpsman. He purely hated to operate.
    The Mekong Delta ran water everywhere in the form of rivers, streams, creeks, and canals. Shit ditches, the SEALs called them, due to the people’s habit of using them as toilets. Nobody wanted to fall into one. Not even the villagers. And especially not Doc, who saw them as writhing with bacteria, fungus, and God knew what else. And here they were, Gene thought, with a narrow canal to cross and no bridge.
    Jim had signaled that the squad should improvise a monkey bridge. As silently as possible, they foraged for dead and fallen palm branches and layered them across. With their boots caked with mud, they crossed one at a time.
    Gene remembered Brian, on point as usual, walking carefully out on the narrow monkey bridge, the branches giving slightly under his weight. Jim crossed next, followed by Roland. They immediately stood security for the rest.
    Carrying the 60, and loaded with ammo belts, Gene had weighed the most. He stepped on the bridge and felt it bend under him, but it held. The fronds were slippery, but his balance was good. Once he was back on solid ground, he sighed with relief and took his security position.
    When Cruz and Alex were across, Doc started. By then, the monkey bridge bore a thick layer of mud. Midway, Gene saw Doc skid. At the moment his feet went out from under him, he yelled, “Oh, no!” and landing astraddle the spiky fronds, let out a Tarzan shriek that must have echoed across the entire Mekong Delta. Gene couldn’t believe his eyes or his ears. Teetering out there on the branches over the shit ditch, Doc was inventing new words at the top of his lungs between howls of pain and fury.
    Gene thought about going to help him, but didn’t dare. Doc was having such a fit that he’d probably shoot the first person who went near him. Biting his lip and trying to keep a straight face, Gene glanced at Cruz, who caught