Ambush

Elephant Grass, Roger A. Blum, 1966

3

The experts in defense conceal themselves as under the ninefold earth; those skilled in attack move as from above the ninefold heavens. Thus they are capable both of protecting themselves and of gaining a complete victory.

Sun Tsu, The Art of War

1968

I was just a passenger as we rode along the road that ran from Pleiku to Ban Me Thuot. The landscape was open, a grassy savannah edged with spindly trees that marked the beginning of the jungle. Some hillsides had been cleared and planted in tea bushes and the rows were a dusty green very pleasing to my eye. Off to the southeast was a place known as the Crow’s Foot that was reported to have a lot of VC and NVA in it. 

The purpose of the trip was as peculiar as the war. Later in the day there would be a ceremony involving the gift of an elephant to a Montagnard village and the unit I was helping to advise, a Vietnamese battalion, was to set up a perimeter defense around the village. For this trip, however, I didn’t have a real job. I was just along for the ride. To be honest, I really just wanted to see the elephant.

The road ahead of us curved and the jungle crept down close, perhaps only 100 meters away. I was nodding, barely awake when the jeep swerved toward the ditch. As I fell out of my seat I saw that the convoy was halted and soldiers were pouring out of the backs of the trucks. A small black cloud was drifting up into the air at the head of the column. A “thump” sound carried down to me. The radio behind me was chattering in Vietnamese, too fast for me to understand. I hit the ground and watched my helmet roll away while I was struggling to get a round into the chamber of my rifle (I know, I should have had a round chambered in the first place). As I crawled after my helmet I heard the angry buzzing and the steady popping sound coming from the tree line. I sprawled in the grass of the ditch and put my helmet on, then slowly, carefully peeked up over the top of the ditch. I could see the flashes of the ambush, hear the spang as bullets ricocheted off the roadway. I ducked back down and hugged the earth and wished, very desperately, for a hole to crawl into. 

Face down in the ditch I smelled the crushed green grass. I didn’t really want to put my head up to begin returning fire. But I had to and I did. More than anything else I wanted a shovel. I wanted to get down into the earth.

It ended much like most such events in those days. Within minutes shells were falling from friendly artillery. The rounds dropped into the tree line with a dark crumping sound and the flashes of the ambush faded away. The buzzing sound of the bullets stopped. Friendly troops swept the tree line finding only brass shell casings and a few spots of blood. I cleared my rifle and put a fresh magazine in. As the convoy resumed I reloaded the magazines I’d emptied. 

I never had the time to begin digging my hole, but I sure did want one. I needed to go down into the earth.