We opened fire on the unsuspecting enemy as they passed in front of us in the open rice paddy field. I could see the look of horror on one Viet Cong's face as I directed my rifle fire into his chest. He screamed as though he was more surprised then in pain. He fell face down onto the ground on top of another body. I ordered my squad to rise from our hidden cover next to the rice paddy dike. We immediately swept through the masses of enemy dead killing any other soldiers who were attempting to escape or appeared they could counter attack. As we moved through the dead and dying, you could hear the air escaping from their lungs when we turned them over. The smell of death was very prevalent and I had become accustomed to it in past battles. After moving through the corpses, I ordered my squad to strip the bodies of all clothing. It would be sent to the rear intelligence personnel to identify the unit we had encountered and destroyed. There may be other information in the various shirts and trousers we peeled off the dead soldiers.
As we continued to strip the clothing, I observed one of the Marines with his Ka-bar knife out. He was preparing to butcher one of the enemy dead by cutting off his ears for trophies. I yelled at him and told him to stop. He looked at me in disgust, but followed my orders. He flung the dead soldier onto the ground like a bag of garbage. As my other men were stripping bodies, I observed some of them go through enemy soldiers' back packs and take items such as knives and personal material. They were taking anything they could sell later for profit to non-combat soldiers in the rear. These were nothing more than the Vietnam War's souvenirs to be proudly shown to friends and relatives in the United States. I understood the reasons why my men would canvass the dead after each battle. It was something that was now a part of them from their combat experiences. We had not always been on the winning team during battles, and had suffered some horrific consequences in enemy ambushes over the months.
I had to control my twenty five man squad. I would not allow then to butcher dead enemy soldiers, but would allow collection of souvenirs as my compromise. This was their spoils of war and a satisfying moment for their victory.
I told my squad to find any food in the dead soldiers' back packs, as we had not eaten for several days. Our Company had been under seize by enemy mortars at our jungle base. We were unable to get resupplied as the choppers would be shot down as they approached our landing zone.
I went through one enemy soldier's back pack looking for food. I found a small package of cooked rice with a few pieces of chicken and tucked it into my pocket. I hurriedly went through other items in the back pack and found a picture of the dead enemy soldier lying there with several other soldiers in the picture. They were all smiling and they appeared jubilant to be photographed together in their uniforms. They were raising their rifles as though in a victory yell for the photographer. I looked into the dead soldier's face and back at the photograph several times. His face refelcted his last look at this world as my bullets ripped into his body. I know he would have killed me had he had the chance, but I was still saddened that his life was now over. I reached into his top shirt pocket and found a small Vietnam flag which was blood spattered from his fatal wounds. I tucked the flag into my pocket and yelled at the Marines to quickly fall back to our original position.
This was a war and dying was the results of the conflict. I remember death was not a daily event in our lives as soldiers, but it occurs often enough in any war to impact its effects on all soldiers in combat. The prize for winning and killing was as simple as another day of living for the victor and passage from life for the loser, generally. In every battle, your adrenalin pushed you to kill or be killed. Your developed a real apathy for the dead strewn about the field of victory, or their field of defeat. Even though your hopes and dreams were aimed toward returning home, the excitement of battle existed. You were thrust into a deadly clash gambling that the round that would kill you eventually was not there that day. Even with the fear and intimidation of dying always present during a firefight, the lure of death spirited you on. It was almost a rush in itself.
I was no fool. I had months of combat and was experienced in ambushes. On this day, we had killed about 20 enemy soldiers, and there was a possibility of more enemy in the area. Even though it was dark, we were susceptible to a counter-attack. It was too risky to move out in the dark and would only make the squad as target for an enemy ambush. We formed as small perimeter along the rice paddy dike, and I would wait until dawn to move out in the night's final hour of darkness.
As we laid on the ground in our protective perimeter I could hear a man crying a short distance from us. It was probably an enemy soldier we had missed that had crawled into a sugar cane field about 50 yards from our position. I ordered my men nearest to the sugar cane patch to throw grenades into it to silence the wounded soldier. I felt dismayed at doing this, but his crying from his wounds would alert other enemy soldiers passing through our area.
The Marines threw several grenades without success. I ordered them to cease, as the soldier was too far away to kill. It would be too risky to go into the sugar cane field and finish our grisly task. He continued to cry for about an hour. I wondered what he was thinking as he lay in pain and anguish. He probably was still armed and knew we would come to kill him at daylight. He knew for as long as he lived that night, he was enjoying the last days of life. I laid there completely quiet and listened to his last act in life, crying as he was unable to help himself. I anguished the entire time at the terrible things that I had to do in this war. I was sick of it all, but had to do what was necessary for my squad's survival.
Just before dawn, I had my squad assemble and we swept the sugar cane field. We found the wounded enemy soldier who had been crying after the battle. He was in the middle of he sugar cane field and was dead. The only wound he had was in the leg. It appeared he had been shot by an M16 rifle and bleed to death. We quickly stripped his clothing and moved back through the jungle to our Company area.
I had seen enough death for one day.