“The base and headquarters were at the top of a hill. The terrain was practically bare with no vegetation on it and the area had been strongly fortified. Around the bottom of the hill there was a spread of dense jungle growth and the perimeter was checked constantly.
We spent months digging to fortify that position ... months and months.
The whole hillside below us was a maze of trenches, with the usual rows of sandbags, barbed wire and underground bunkers.
On that particular day the sun was shining and the radio was on. You could always hear it in the background; it was on 24 hours a day.
The sun and that constant low sound of the radio almost put you to sleep.
For us, it was like being at the beach.
There was a really sleepy atmosphere at the base that day.
Then, suddenly we heard a lot of shouting over the radio.
I was there when the call came, and I heard everything.
One of our patrols out in the jungle beyond the northern perimeter had come across an enemy unit.
The screams we heard over the radio were desperate.
The guy out there in the jungle was panicking and shouting too close to the microphone so we couldn’t make out what he was trying to say.
He had a southern accent.
He said that they had just come across an enemy mortar unit and the mortars had already been positioned.
At that point all hell broke loose in our camp. It was like the end of the world had just started.
All of the fortifications down at the lower level of the camp were destroyed; some of them were blown to smithereens.
I was up at the top, close to the command bunker, where I could see everything that was going on. There must have been more than ten enemy mortars.
Within just a few seconds all of our outer trenches, bunkers and barbed wire disappeared into a cloud of dust and splinters.
The entire perimeter below us was surrounded and covered by smoke and dust.
In the meantime some of our M60s were already responding to the fire but they were shooting at nothing.
Our men in the trenches were no longer safe.
At most it would take just two or three more attempts for the enemies to see how to adjust their trajectories and then they would be able to drop the mortar bombs into the corridors we had dug in the ground.
The commander we had at that time was called Morris, and he was the one who helped me realize what was going to happen.
He turned to me and said:
“Those god damn shells are gonna fall in our trenches.”
I hardly had the courage to look up over the sandbags but, as cool as a cucumber, Morris was just standing there, looking down at what was going on.
He said that all of the first salvo of mortar shells had targeted the outer defense line, so I could get up and watch.
There was still no risk for us.
“Judging from what they’re aiming at”, Morris said, “they want to weaken our external-perimeter defenses and then they’ll attack us. Otherwise they would have targeted the command bunker right from the start.”
When he finished the sentence, I began to feel my hair rising out of fear. I felt tense, very tense, because the idea that they were about to arrive was a shock. I was young then ..."
Ortega stopped to think.
That boy - who had just turned twenty - felt that he was still very young until a year ago... And that everything had changed now.
"I was afraid, but he was really cool so I got up and looked over the ramparts too.
He was right. The shells had fallen by the bunkers, the machine-gun nests, and the two armored cars assigned to our company. In other words, the shells had all fallen on our front defense lines.
The armored cars were already moving. Their drivers shouldn't give these North Vietnamese enough time to adjust their trajectories.
They had just a few seconds to maneuver away if they didn’t want to be hit and end up dead.
It must have been scary having to do what they were doing.
In the meantime, Ford and Martinez, the two guys that were with me, had returned from our bunkers with the M16s and helmets. They brought a rifle and helmet for me too.
Morris went on explaining what was happening.
“Look down there, Johnny,” he said, “and look carefully. They’re going to destroy our machine guns with the mortar shells or in any case they’ll force us to move them.
Then they’ll come up the hill.
It would have been enough to engage the mortar unit out there to prevent all of this happening but when our reconnaissance patrol identified them, it was too late.
They goofed up.
Now our only hope is to repel their attack if we can, while the other patrols out in the jungle move back from their sectors and converge on the enemy unit.”
But this wasn't the worst possible scenario.
Morris added:
“ … unless this first attack is just to put us off our guard and concentrate our attention on what’s going on here. This may be just a ploy and if there are enough North Vietnamese out there to attack from two sides ... we are finished.”
Ortega now interrupted Rambo, who was talking a lot and very quickly.
He asked him whether the North Vietnamese did attack in the end.
Ortega had a great desire to know how the story ended, but Rambo simply told him that they did eventually attack.
The guy suddenly dried up and didn’t say anything else, as if he had already spoken too much.
Then he said:
"You see, in cases like that there are only two kinds of people: those who know what the ‘moves’ are and those that don’t. People like Morris knew what the moves had to be. Others, even above him, didn’t."
Rambo took a sip of his beer, and went on talking:
"Trautman definitely knows what he’s doing. When they got him to create this unit, he inspected the companies and told us we could take part in the selection process. Some of the guys didn’t even listen to what he was saying but I was interested in the selection and I managed to suss this guy out a bit and I got to understand how he thinks about various things. Believe me, he knows what he’s talking about. We are lucky to be with this guy. He was the one who taught me about the ‘moves’. The motto of the unit he’s putting together is 'We study the next move, Sir!’
You'll see how many times they get us to repeat it.
You'll see …
A lot of other people think that what Trautman says is a load of crap.
For many people, the colonel just goes overboard with his calculations and thinks too much.
For me, it’s not like that.
Because I know ... I've seen it happen and I know it's true.
I know he's right."
Rambo drank some more beer and gazing into mid-air.
Then he continued:
"I’m not going to be one of those recruits that just try to survive the selection.
I want to be the way he wants me to be ‘cause I know he's right.
And then, fine, so you can be the meanest motherfucker in the valley of death, but unless you know the moves, man, you're dead even before you enter a combat zone and without even havin’ a friggin’ inkling why it should be that way.
That day, on that hill, I had no idea what I was doing.
But Morris had a clear picture of everything."
Rambo was looking into the distance again.
He drank some more beer and then, without Ortega asking him, he went on with his story.
"That day some people knew what moves to make, and others didn’t.
There were some of them who didn’t even know what was happening in their area and they were moving around aimlessly; they didn’t have a clue why they were doing it and they just went where they thought help was needed … but by doing that, they were abandoning their side of the hill, not realizing that if their unprotected flank fell, the North Vietnamese would have broken through and entered our camp.
In short, they were trying to help out but at the same time they were putting our lives at risk."
"How did the battle go, John? Did they arrive? Did they attack in the end?"
Rambo nodded.
"And you …?” asked Ortega.
Rambo continued drinking his beer.
"Did you kill any of them?"
Rambo nodded again.
"Well, it was like target practice, using the ‘pig’ (the M60); that’s all it was. The way they were coming up at us it was like something out of World War I.
They tried to conceal their presence with smoke screens, but it didn’t do them any good because I knew where to shoot; I just kept pressing the trigger and that was it.
Then, as soon as they began to approach, a couple of Cobras took off from the top of the hill.
As they were lifting off, those friggin’ choppers raised so much shit and dust from the ground ... I couldn’t see a thing and the noise was deafening. I couldn’t even talk to Ford.
As soon as they were up, they soon started firing and covered us, and they were just over our heads. They were firing their rockets and using cannons. They hit back with everything they had, all at once.
I could see the drifting trails of smoke left by the rockets coming down to the base of the hill.
All hell was let loose over our heads: with the chopper blades, the rockets and machine guns, it was like sitting in a jet turbine.
As soon as the North Vietnamese managed to dodge the helicopter fire, they started to loom up in my machine-gun sights.
Using an M60 and an M16, Ford and I took out at least twenty of them and those we didn’t kill had to stay crouching in their holes.
At that point, some of the enemy tried to head toward the barbed wire to escape.
We fired and reloaded and kept on shooting without ever stopping for five hours, and we were constantly targeted by those frigging mortars.
They didn’t stop using the mortar shells even when their own troops were coming at us. They were practically shelling their own assault troops with a sort of ‘intentional’ friendly fire.
Seriously.
They came on toward us without stopping even under their own artillery fire.
The North Vietnamese didn’t give a shit about killing each other and if you’ve never seen it, you have no idea what they’re capable of doing.
It was the sickest show I’d ever seen. It was beyond any military logic and yet, it seemed to work. Almost none of them died from friendly fire.
Boy, was that scary stuff.
So our human target practice went on for something like five hours, while on the other side of the hill, we were doing a lot worse.
But the others held out.
At the end of that goddamned attack, the ringing in my ears wouldn’t stop, my hands were covered in burns and I couldn’t see out of one eye because of all the dirt that had been thrown up by the explosions and the Cobras hovering above our heads.
Anyway, we did it.
And that’s how it went in Siu Fei that day.
I guess I was lucky.”
The young veteran took another long swig of his beer.
He tended to drink slowly, but when he did, he consumed a hell of a lot all in one go.
"Martinez was dead, but we didn’t know till the next day."
Ortega shivered, but Rambo didn't catch on that his story had affected him somehow.
“We went to sleep that night but we just didn’t know where Martinez was, and we didn’t care very much either. A lot of us had finished our night-shift guard duty shortly before the attack began so we hadn’t slept for twenty-four hours … and that included me.
At some point during the combat Martinez just disappeared and it pissed us off more than ever.
But then we were close to snapping under the pressure and so we couldn’t give a damn. Some of the others even passed out from sheer fatigue.
Do you get what I’m saying?
Some thought he might have been hiding somewhere, or maybe he’d just flipped.
That can happen.
And it happens more often than people think … they get lost, so they hide out somewhere, they just get as far away as they can from the fighting, they freak out and stay put somewhere for hours on end, sobbing and weeping their hearts out, even after the battle is over.
The next day someone found his tags in the middle ...
In the middle of ...
Yeah, fuck, we found his dog tags and we figured what had happened: a mortar shell had fallen into a foxhole just when he was moving through it.
So there was nothing left of Martinez.
That same day, Morris the officer who knew all the 'moves' lost a hand, so he was sent back to the world.
They told me he was injured by something that fell out of one of our choppers; I wasn’t there when it happened.
They told me he’s still on active duty, but working as an instructor.
Anyway, he was brilliant.
And Ford, the guy that covered me … he’s still there … maybe in Saigon.
He’s been there for three years now. He always extended his enlistment.
He killed one of them with a bayonet that day.
Yeah, he did ‘n all.
He went to fill up with ammunition … and he almost didn’t make it back.
He was running, and he was practically unarmed at that moment; that was when he came face to face with one of them … one of the few North Vietnamese that managed to get through our cross fire: the cross fire I was also providing.
He survived just because he was faster than the enemy … and if he had died, it would have been all my fault and mine alone."
"Holy shit!"
"Yeah."
"That was really a hell of a battle."
"Right.”
Rambo paused.
Then said:
“It dawned on me that if you are not a member of the Special Forces, you're just a number … cannon fodder.
You’re expendable.
They’ll use you like a pawn, whenever necessary.
But the Green Berets are a different thing, and are worth a lot. I mean they’re very expensive to train: it takes time and money to prepare them. So the guys in charge want them to stay alive ... because they’re precious, ok?
And that's what I hope to become: precious, because that way I might survive another ‘tour’. So this is why I decided to try to enter the 5th Special Forces group.”