Chapter 10

As he sat, Jerry held up his hands and yelled, “Americans, we are Americans.”

The Tank Commander kept Jerry covered while he radioed one of the Armored Personnel Carriers. The APC dropped its ramp and disgorged a Sergeant and six Marines. The Marines took up covering positions around the tank and the Sergeant cautiously walked forward, his M-16 trained on Jerry. He stopped about twenty meters away.

“Who are you?” the Marine asked.

“Sergeant Jericho Donavan, US Army,” Jerry replied.

“Why are you dressed like that, and better yet what are you doing here?”

“Sorry, I can’t answer either of those questions those answers need to come from someone above my paygrade. What we really need to do is to take care of my teammate’s body and I need to speak to your S-2,” Jerry said.

The Marine Sergeant figured out what they had been up to when he noticed Jerry’s M-14; the only Marines with M-14s were snipers.

“We’ll do that Sergeant Donavan but stay put for a minute and put your rifle on the ground in front of you,” he said.

Jerry unstrapped his weapon and carefully laid it on the road and sat down. Jerry was bone weary, thirsty, and hungry. He had no fight left in him, even if he had wanted to object to giving up his weapon.

As soon as Jerry laid down his weapon the Sergeant turned to his men, “Stand down first squad and someone run back and get the Doc and tell him to bring a body bag.”

The ‘Doc’ was the Navy Corpsman assigned to the Marine’s platoon. The exhausted man sitting on the ground with his dead buddy strapped to his back was one of the saddest sights the medic had ever seen. He put his hand on Jerry’s shoulder.

“Sergeant Donavan I’m Petty Officer Leggett. Are you wounded?”

Jerry shook his head.

“Okay then, let’s get your friend unhooked so I can look you over,” Leggett said gently.

Jerry nodded and helped the Corpsman unhook Sean’s body. The medic was shocked by the advanced state of decomposition the body displayed.

Still keeping his voice calm and soft he asked, “How long have you been carrying your friend?”

Jerry shrugged and answered, “Four ... no five days but he was alive the first day.”

The Corpsman nodded as he lay Sean’s body on the ground. He motioned a couple of Marines over and one of them unfolded the body bag as Leggett started filling out a Combat Casualty Card, DD Form 1380.

“We need to put your friend...”

That was all he got out before Jerry corrected him. “His name is Sean, Staff Sergeant Sean McDonald.”

“Okay, sorry. We need to put Sean’s body into this bag so we can get him back to Dong Ha. Once there you’ll be Medevac’d back to the hospital in Da Nang. Leggett said, and then he asked, “What is Staff Sergeant McDonald’s unit?”

“SAS Regiment, Australian Army, attached to JTF-17 in Saigon,” Jerry answered.

Leggett quirked an eyebrow, surprised by the answer to his question, but he dutifully wrote it on the card. By then the two Marines had wrangled Sean’s body into the body bag. The corpse was bloated and starting to smell so they moved with a sense of urgency. Doc Leggett placed the card on Sean’s chest and zipped up the bag. The marines picked up the body bag and carried it to the open ramp of the APC.

Doc Leggett was about to turn his attention to Jerry when the Tank Commander called out to him.

“Shake a leg, Doc, this is a dangerous place to conduct sick call.”

Leggett threw the TC a thumbs up. “Let’s get you up, Sergeant Donavan, and I’ll check you out in the APC.”

Two of the Marine came over to help him up, but Jerry shook them off.

“I just walked fifty kilometers so I think I can make it another fifty meters,” he said.

After examining Donavan, Doc Leggett was amazed that he was still on his feet. The man was severely dehydrated, and he was probably suffering from heat exhaustion. Plus who knew how fucked he was mentally after carrying a dead man fifty kilometers. Leggett started an IV drip and had Jerry nibble some crackers and sip some water.

Twenty minutes later the small, mechanized patrol rolled back into the base camp that was located north of the city of Dong Ha. Bored Marines came out their hooches and bunkers to see why one APC rolled up to the aid station where the Battalion Commander and the Chief Petty Officer in charge of the clinic were waiting. The ramp came down and a couple of Marines hauled out a body bag. The Chief pointed to the side entrance of the clinic where his make shift morgue was located.

When the body bag cleared the ramp, they saw Doc Leggett holding a drip bag as a scruffy looking soldier in a weird black uniform shuffled out of the M-113. At the bottom of the ramp the man swayed drunkenly but waved off any help. He drew himself up to the position of attention, saluted the Battalion Commander ... and passed out face first into the ubiquitous monsoon mud.

Jerry woke up disoriented but quickly remembered where he was as someone tried to stuff an ammonia capsule up his nose. He pushed the hand away, feeling much better as he glanced around taking in his surroundings. The man with the ammonia capsule was wearing jungle fatigues with gold oak leaves on his collar.

When Jerry’s eyes finally focused on his face the man spoke. “Welcome back Sergeant Donavan, I’m Doctor Ryan and you are in the dispensary of Marine Base Camp Trojan outside the city of Dong Ha. You passed out from heat exhaustion, and we kept you out and on fluids for twenty-four hours so your body could recover some. Now I believe there are some people here to see you.”

Doctor Ryan stepped aside and Captain Collins, the JTF-17 Assistant Operations Officer and Sergeant Major Greer, the Task Force Sergeant Major stepped forward. Greer was a decent guy, but Collins was an ass, plain and simple. He was a West Pointer who thought his poo-poo didn’t smell bad. Collins was an Infantry Officer, but he had never been in the field.

“I’m sorry about McDonald, Sergeant Donavan, he was a good man,” the Sergeant Major said.

Jerry started to reply when Captain Collins stepped in front of the Sergeant Major and cut him off.

“Yeah, tragic loss, Donavan, but did you accomplish the mission?” Collins asked.

Jerry looked at the Captain and was about to get up and deck him when the Sergeant Major shook his head.

“Sir, we can’t discuss that here,” Greer stated forcefully.

Collins looked annoyed for a second then schooled his features. “Of course, Sergeant Major, thanks for reminding me,” he said insincerely. “We can cover all that in the S-2 secure area as soon as Donavan can walk.”

As he spoke, Collins was looking at Doctor Ryan.

Ryan shrugged. “There’s not much else we can do for him. Your Sergeant Donavan is an extremely fit young man. I am recommending light duty for fourteen days, but you can take him, and Staff Sergeant McDonald’s remains home with you.”

The Sergeant Major scrounged up a uniform for Jerry and some new boots and Dr Ryan gave him the temporary medical records the aid station had started. Soon enough Jerry was on his feet, dressed and out the door headed for the Marine Battalion’s S-2 bunker. Collins spent a few minutes talking to the S-2. The S-2 made sure his classified materials were secured and stepped outside.

Once the bunker was empty, Collins started again. “Did you accomplish your mission, Donavan?” he asked again.

Jerry gave Collins a hard look, but he bit his tongue and replied, “No, Sir, we did not. There was at least a battalion waiting on us. It was a set up, and you sent us into a trap!”

Jerry had spent four days stewing on the fact that not only did the PAVN know they were coming, but they also even knew his and Sean’s names. Someone had set them up and he didn’t know who he could trust now. He left out the name thing and recapped the mission for the Captain.

When he was through Collins said, “That doesn’t sound like they were waiting on you, it sounds more like you compromised yourselves.”

Jerry jumped out of his chair, “Are you calling me a liar, Sir?” he said with some heat in his voice.

The Sergeant Major stepped between the two men and faced Jerry. “I’m sure that’s not what he meant; right, Captain?” and his voice left no room for argument.

Captain Collins knew he’d made a mistake by the Sergeant Major’s tone. It was one thing to confront a Buck Sergeant, but tangling with the Sergeant Major, who had served in combat with the Task Force Commander, and had his ear, was ill advised. Not to mention the Sergeant Major was a tough old relic who thought that a counseling session wasn’t complete if didn’t involve a good left hook.

Collins back pedaled, “No, of course not, I’m just trying to cover all possible scenarios.”

“We can discuss all this back in Saigon, so let’s get a move on. Sergeant Donavan I’d like for Staff Sergeant McDonald’s body go back with us, are you all right with that?” said Greer.

Jerry nodded, “I’d like that, Sergeant Major. He was one of us and he should stay with us.”

Jerry tracked down his rifle, it was with the Marine Unit’s armorer. A Lance Corporal handed Jerry a freshly cleaned and oiled rifle. The scope Jerry removed when he was evading was remounted with new lens caps.

“This is a nice rig Sergeant,” the Armorer said, “You sure you ain’t a Marine?”

Jerry laughed and shook his head. “I can’t be a Marine,” he said, “because I know who my father is.”

The Lance Corporal chuckled. “Ouch,” he said, “and to think I even bore sighted your scope.”

Jerry thanked him and walked over to the helicopter pad to meet up with Collins and Greer. They rode down to Da Nang on a CH-47, Sean McDonald’s remains, sealed in a green body bag, rode with them. A C-130 was waiting for them in Da Nang for the flight down to Tan Son Nhut. The 380-mile flight took four hours because it stopped at Nha Trang to let off a classified document courier and to refuel.

Jerry and Sergeant Major Greer stayed with Sean’s remains until a Mortuary Service van took him away. Jerry and Greer both signed affidavits that the body in the bag belonged to Sean. The van took Sean’s body across the base to the remote mortuary that served all of Vietnam.

Jerry went through three debriefings about the aborted mission in the North. In each one he withheld the fact that the PAVN officers knew his name. The trajectory of Jerry’s life took a radical turn after the fiasco in North Vietnam. Jerry had a new personal mission now: he was going to find whoever betrayed him and Sean. And when he found them, he would make them pay.

Jerry was assigned a new spotter after a few weeks of light duty. The new guy was a Spec 4 from one of the Ranger Companies named Brian Swisher. Swisher thought he was ten feet tall and bullet proof, so he fit right in with Jerry’s new philosophy of kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out. Jerry was friendly with Swisher, but he didn’t share the same closeness he had with Sean. With Jerry’s new attitude and Swisher’s feeling of invulnerability, Team Mountaineer did much less scouting and much more sniping. When they couldn’t hit their primary target, they found targets of opportunity.

Because of the rapid depletion of the Vietnamese teams, the operational tempo increased for S/S Mountaineer. They were back to drawing a mission every three weeks and on one occasion they drew three in thirty days.

By doing some judicious snooping Jerry learned that nine men knew about their mission to eliminate Giap, Five of the men were part of JTF-17’s Tactical Operations Center, two were Intelligence Analysts for the CIA and two were Vietnamese Officers from the ARVN Intelligence Directorate. The ARVNs were in the loop because their sources corroborated the intercepted radio chatter. The Vietnamese Officers were a Lieutenant Colonel named Tran and a Major by the name of Nguyen. Jerry occasionally saw the ARVN officers around the area but paid them little attention because they had their own compound and Operations Center.