OverKill

by Dave Stromire

Echo 2/1 ’68-69

    I was on point for Brads Squad, and our squad was point for the company. It was early evening and as I was thrashing through the heavy brush, I spotted about ten VC running away from us.  Brad, even as squad leader, always liked to walk just behind the point.  Anyway, we both looked at each other and took off after those VC.  It had been one of them months, when the only contact we would have with our keen enemy, was by sniper fire, hit and run, or booby-traps. It was very frustrating.  So when we really made a confirmed contact with our elusive enemy. It was like seeing that BIG BUCK, back when we use to hunt for deer. So like two young kids on our 1st hunting trip, we darted out after them.  If I got tangled up in brush, Brad would find another way, and we went back and forth like that. We just kept going after them, leaving the rest of the squad and Echo way behind.

   When we realized what we were doing, we stopped and looked at each other with that “deer in the head lights stare”, and started laughing, Brad looked at me still laughing, and said "Hey, It’s like we just saw a big buck and got buck fever. The VC had run into this old concrete abandoned hooch.  I don’t think they even knew we were right there behind them. So as we sat down to catch our breath [we waited for our squad and Echo Co. to catch up] Brad told me, don’t let me do this again. 

  We all know just how quiet a company of Marines in Full gear can be, sloshing through paddy’s and thrashing through heavy brush. So when Echo caught up with us, we told the Captain where we saw them last.  But, informed him, since we heard them a click away that the VC also heard them and were likely three clicks away. But NO! ...  Being, Marines with Superior Fire power the Captain called for a flame thrower tank from 2/1’s rear. That must have taken another hour, and by then it was getting pretty dark. But, we waited until it showed up, and watched it go to work, shooting flames all through that cement hooch. It made an awesome camp fire, and warmed our wet cold bodies.

      “O.K.”, Brad and I are saying "Hey they're long gone!”   But no, the Captain didn't stop at that, he called in Snoopy or Puff, (I get them both mixed up). And, by the time that Snoopy arrived Brad and I were too tired to laugh anymore and told the Captain that there probably wasn't a hostile with-in ten clicks. Than, I got to see snoopy in all its glory for the first time, and what awesome fire power it was, but they forgot to tell me about those dang canisters from Snoopy's Flares that lit up the whole sky. As soon as it went out, all we heard was the noise of incoming empty canister’s spinning in the air right before the big thud! when it hit the ground. I was thinking this was not the way I wanted to go home, being driven into the ground by a falling canister.

  Well, it was starting to get daylight, that's how long this whole hunt lasted.  We got on line and swept through the area and house with no sign of any HOSTILES.   Brad looked at me and said "no sign of any deer either."  I don’t think there was any sign of anything, except that hooch where a company of not so happy Marines, made camp.

  Almost a year later at the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California. They took the amputee patients, strapped in jeeps, and shot twenty two deer, for a venison and celebrity picnic. With Sal Bando of Oakland, Ben Davidson of the Oakland Raiders, also Merle Haggert and other Celebes.

I chose not to go on the hunt.