CRACK!!! CRACK!!! CRACK!!! CRACK!!! Ambush!!! Yells Solomon, tree line right! He didn’t have to say it twice! We were down and returning fire like madmen. The first rifle crack had us all eating sand and pumping the tree line with semi-automatic fire. Rounds were coming so close to our heads that the sand they kicked up when they hit, stung and burned our skin. “Keep down”, Solomon yelled as he turned to Jim. “Call in a fire mission NOW!!!  Try to flank them on the left” he yelled, as rounds came even closer. Shit! The flanking maneuver was not an option, they had us pinned down and zeroed in so that we could hardly budge. This was our second firefight in under an hour; where was second platoon when we needed them? 

Fred yelled “they have us pinned down with a spotter; we can’t even get our heads out of the sand. Keep firing, artillery will be coming”.   “Hotel. Hotel. Hotel One Alpha. Fire Mission, Fire Mission over”.  “Hotel One Alpha what is your position over”. “What’s our position Jim yells out?” Solomon leaps up and dives closer to Jim to take over the radio. “Hotel, Hotel, this is One Alpha, our pos is 2246,3765, I say again 2246,3765 over”. “Wait One, One Alpha, we’re putting the Six on the net”.  “Hotel One Alpha where is Charley from your position over”. “Roger, Victor Charlie is 300 meters due East of our pos; we estimate a dozen or so with small arms and RPGs over”.  “A Roger 300 meter due East of 2246,3765 is that affirm over?”   “Affirm, affirm, break, break, fire one WP for adjust”. Roger that is 300 meters due East of your pause at 2246,3765, one WP, you will adjust; over”. “Roger AFFIRM!!! 

“Hotel One Alpha, this is Hotel, can you flank them? Over”.  “Negative Hotel, we are pinned down that’s why we need a fire mission over”.  “Roger, fire mission on hold, trying to reach B Battery to take the mission, what is your position One Alpha?”  “I say again Six, 2246,3765; Victor Charlie due north my pos 300 meters over”. “One Alpha, this is Hotel 6, can you pull back from your position?”  “Six actual, I say again, we are pinned down unable to move, taking heavy small arms fire and RPG’s over”. “Roger wait one.”

“Hey” Fred yells “I see their spotter, I see their spotter”.  “ Kill the SOB”. Solomon yells back,  “Get him off our backs”. Fred says to me, “it’s that kid 200 meters over there on the water buffalo. Do you want to take the kid or the Buffalo?” I’ll take the Buffalo, you get the kid, if he isn’t the spotter we’re going to be facing jail time. “It is the spotter Fred exclaimed, so on three shoot...”  Just as we were about to fire, an oil truck comes down the road and Charlie opens up on it. You never saw a driver move so fast as rounds bounced off his truck and the fuel trailer, it must have been full the way he Slammed on the brakes and shot out of the cab and never looking back.

One, Two, POP! POP! Both water buffalo and kid went down before the ringing in my ears began. No sooner had they gone down and all the firing stopped. Evidently he was their spotter and he had us homed in big time. “I told you” Lynch blurted out in excitement, “Pop, Pop, man what a team, we can shoot, they’ll think twice before pulling a dumb move like that again”.

“Hotel One Alpha, Hotel One Alpha, we got your fire mission over”. “Roger Hotel, this is One Alpha, negative on that mission over, I say again, negative on that mission, do you copy”.  “Roger, negative fire mission.. One Alpha what’s going on out there over,” “Ambush broken up and we’re picking up to come in over.” Roger, come in and report to me when you arrive over”. “That’s Affirm, Hotel One Alpha out.”
 

As we dusted the sand off our uniforms and formed up; making sure that we never took our eyes off the tree line. We could still see the truck driver off in the distance buried in the ground like a mole. He’d left his truck so fast he’d forgotten to take his weapon.  A lot of help he would have been to us!  He was one lucky son of a gun. When they opened up on him they didn’t ignite the fuel inside the trailer and fry him to a crisp.

Honk! Honk! A jeep coming up the Tu Cu road was honking his horn at us as if he was one of our buddies, or had seen the ambush and figured we kicked ass. Hink! Hink! This voice yells from the jeep. Damn if it wasn’t my father of all people, sitting up straight in the passenger seat, with his 45 cal. pistol in a shoulder holster over his chest. 

Solomon, that’s my father, he’s suppose to be in Japan, I have no idea what he’s doing here...and at all times, just after having two major fire fights, that we were lucky to survive.  Can we meet him on the road? “No problem” Solomon said, “I’d like to meet him myself. Is he an Officer Hingston?” You bet, do you think any enlisted personal could get out of Japan to joy ride to Vietnam to see their son. “I guess you are right about that” Solomon stated as we headed for the jeep now only a few 100 yards from us and closing. How in the hell he recognized me out here in the middle of nowhere was beyond me, but parents can recognize their own children anywhere even if they’re in some jungle area 13.000 miles away from home. It must be some kind of homing device God gives all parents when he hands out parental responsibility.

“Stay in line till we reach the road”, Solomon ordered, “we don’t need to set off any booby traps now after what we have all just gone through”.  “Is that really your Dad Fred questioned?”  Sure is I said, I’m as surprised to see him as you are. “How the hell did he get permission to go down this road?” Fred asked, everyone but my father knew that the Tu Cau road was one of the heaviest booby-trapped roads surrounding Da Nang. “You lucky SOB, who ever gets visitors in Vietnam” Fred said. I do I said. “Do you think he can get us a day in Da Nang while he’s here?”  Fred asked? I’ll ask him, but it’s up to the CO. “The Skipper will” Fred said, “How often does a dad get to visit his son in Vietnam? Maybe he’ll get the whole squad a day off in Da Nang”. We will see, I said.  My heart was pounding with excitement just hearing his voice and now he was less than 50 meters from me. Talk about a shock. I figured I’d wait and tell him how dangerous the road he was on was once we had spent some time together. Damn was I surprised, who would have figured this happening out here in the middle of nowhere?