Chapter 15
We lay hidden in the woodline, our ambush well set up, Claymore mines forward of our positions, our crew served weapons, M60 machine guns, at each end of the line ambush, waiting for the enemy to walk into our trap. No one dared break the silence, no movement allowed, we ignored the bites of ants and mosquitoes as eyes peered out from behind camouflage. Overhead we could hear the birds and small animals begin to move about again, they’d run off as we set up our trap, but now had returned. Slowly turning my head to the right, I tried to see the next man over from me, but the darkness of the woods and the effectiveness of his efforts kept him from my view.
Suddenly, with a flutter of wings, the birds above us departed, and the stark silence was unnerving. Then faintly in the distance, I could hear a slight rustling, as if something large was moving towards us. I strained my eyes to see, nothing. Then, to the left of my field of fire, a slight movement, as I watched, the form took shape. I could make out the details of a man, moving slowly in a crouch, using the terrain for cover. Well, you failed Buster, I thought to myself. As I continued to watch, another man emerged from the shadows, angling to the right of the point man, and motioning behind him, signaling no doubt the platoon or squad to follow. A steady stream of figures emerged, each fanning out to the right or left as they came into the open area to our front. I waited, and as I waited, I silently slid the selector switch on my M16 from safe to full auto yet kept my finger from the trigger. I wanted no premature fire to alert them before they entered the kill zone. I knew the signal, as did everyone of us. We’d been drilled and threatened enough by SSG Winston that we could have been asleep and still told you what the signal was.
“Don’t nobody, and I fucking mean Nobody pop a cap before that damn first Claymore goes off”
“When it does, keep your heads screwed on, them with claymores pop em, then shoot, them with the 60′s sweep the field. The rest of you bastards remember your kill zone.”
Silently we waited, watching as they crept closer and closer. My mouth was getting dry, and I though surely they could hear every beat of my heart. We’d been warned too about being captured, and what we could expect from the enemy if we were stupid enough to fall into their hands. None of us had any desire to be captured, from what we’d been told, these people were extremely rough on prisoners, and we’d no desire to find out first hand.
“Light them bastards up, and when I give the second signal, everybody start their retreat, we gonna lead em right into second platoon.”
This too was part of his plan, normally ambushes were not stacked like this, too easy for you to get lit up by your own people, who would be excited and trigger happy when the rounds started popping. We would be running back, right into the muzzles of their weapons, and who was to say they would recognize us at that moment. Still, if it worked like we’d rehearsed, which rarely happens, we’d be assured of almost completely destroying the enemy.
They had spread out over the entire opening now, and their leader emerged from the shadows, the soldier beside him giving him away with the radio strapped to his back. He’d made great efforts to conceal it, but his proximity to the leader, as well the cord that stretched from his back to the leaders hand, was a total giveaway. Any moment now, I cringed slightly in anticipation of the signal which had to come soon. Their point man was almost on top of me. I could almost feel his eyes burning into me as he stealthily moved up. He was close enough for me to hear his breathing, I could see the grenades pinned to his combat gear, small details of his uniform, so different from my own, caught my attention. His black eyes scanned alertly, he was softly swearing in a whisper, but the words in Spanish were alien to me.
WA-BOOM, the report of the mine echoed through the woods, startling everyone, including we defenders, and in its aftermath, came the sound of automatic weapons fire, the sharp crack of M16′s and the louder chatter of the M60 machine guns, interspersed with the boom of the other mines. I opened up on the point man, who had turned his back towards me briefly in surprise at the explosion. He fell to the ground, and around me, the attackers began to raggedly return fire. Their leader had fallen to the ground and drug down the radio man with him. I could hear him screaming orders to his men, but his words were lost in the noise of the ambush.
WHOOSH, the sound of the signal flare burst over all other noise, and we began to fall back towards the second platoon. Firing in short burst as we retreated, I could see the attackers gathering themselves for an assault. Something flew through the air towards me, and I swerved behind a tree as I recognized it, a smoke grenade. Realizing what it was, I resumed my way towards the next ambush, screaming the password.
“CAVALRY HO, CAVALRY HO”
Behind me I could hear curses in high pitched Spanish, “HIJO DE PUTA, TU MARICON PENDEJOS” those I understood.
Mixed with the curses I could hear automatic weapons fire. If I had needed a reason to run faster, they were supplying it. I crashed through the woods, to my left and right, other soldiers were doing the same. Suddenly before me I saw the muzzle of a rifle, and I yelled out the password again and leaped over a man prone on the ground, by the shape of his helmet, I realized this was the second ambush line, and thankfully, they had the discipline to hold their fire until given their signal. Running as fast as I could I keep on towards our rally point.
Even as I ran, I heard the boom of mines and the familiar sound of M60 machine guns opening up, the second ambush had been sprung. More curses, both English and Spanish could be heard echoing through the woods, I reached the rally point, and checked in with SSG Winston, his eyes danced as he counted his troops and assigned them their fighting positions.
“Good shit men, good shit, we ate them bastards up.” “Duke, where the fuck is Whitney? He was to the left of you.”
“Don’t know Sarge, I heard him shooting, but didn’t see him when we got the signal to retreat. I hope he didn’t get caught.”
SSG Winston looked around the circle of men, each one facing outwards with their weapons up and ready. I could see him counting as his eyes went from man to man, each of us identified by our names written on our helmet bands. Following his gaze, I could see that we were missing two people, Whitney and Cocca, the usual fuck-ups.
“Cocca’s missing too sarge.” I told Winston, “Guess his dumbass got lost as well.”
A smile crossed his face, and shaking his head he said, “serve that dumb fuck right, hope they got him.” We settled into our positions within the circle, and waited. The sounds of gunfire died off slowly, then silence reigned briefly before a whistle blew.
“Lets go men, that’s the signal, get yer asses up.” Winston stood and motioned me forward. “Wonder what the total was?” We headed out in a line formation, with Winston pulling slack for the point man, and me picking up the rear. We headed off towards a known gather point, keeping an interval between us, as we’d been trained to do. No one spoke, in fact the only sound was the normal little sounds made by boots on damp vegetation and the occasional grunt when someone didn’t duck a limb fast enough. We marched approximately 2 kilometers, and as we approached the gather point, we could hear the sound of men talking quietly.
As we approached the clearing, Winston moved to the front, and was thus the first one into the opening. He held up his hand to halt the formation, scanned the area, then directed us towards the north side of the clearing. In front of us were Humvees and two jeeps, men moved busily back and forth across the clearing. A large group of men were standing to the east side of the open area, watching us as we filed in, their dark eyes glaring at us, and though we were too far away to hear them, you could see them commenting on us. We reached the position Winston had directed us to, and began to drop down, removing helmets and stacking weapons against them.
A man detached himself from the group near us and hurried over to us, Winston and I stood as he approached.
“You in charge here Staff Sergeant?” he asked, at Winston’s nod, he spoke again.
“Dewey, training officer for the School of Americas, your men were the first ambush weren’t you?”
Winston nodded, and SFC Dewey went on, “Damn ambush you set up was extremely effective, took them all by surprise, and that second ambush, well, lets say while it was unusual, it damn sure worked. I figured the attrition rate at 95 percent. You men waxed their asses. Good Job.” He turned to the rest of the squad, and yelled “Damn good work men, chows at the Humvee.” Turning back to Winston he smiled and then said, “I believe we have something over here that belongs to you.” He pointed towards the group of soldiers staring at us and made a motion, upon which they parted and we could see two figures trussed up and laying face down in the dirt. The mystery of what had become of Whitney and Cocca had been resolved. As we looked on, one of the soldiers put a foot on Cocca’s head and posed as his companion took a snapshot of him.
“Duke, go get them friggin idiots, and make sure the Pablo’s give them back their gear and weapons. And, I think a little PT before chow would do them good.” He turned back to the rest of the squad and told them to hit the chow truck. Then chuckling to himself, he sat on his helmet and lit up a smoke. I walked over to the group holding our two men hostage, hoping as I did that some of them spoke better English than I spoke Spanish.
We had been tasked with providing OPFOR, or if you prefer, Opposing Forces, for the School of Americas, which was a training facility located on Ft. Benning, designed to train South American forces and perhaps others on guerilla warfare and small unit tactics. While it was mostly fun and games for us, it was deadly serious for them, what with facing drug lords and cartels in their own countries. They took their training very seriously, and often forgot that we were just there to simulate the enemy, not the actual enemy. When I said we were very reluctant to be taken prisoner, I wasn’t joking, these men would hurt you. So far no one had been seriously injured but several if not most of those taken prisoner, had received a good ass kicking, so it wasn’t something you wanted to have happen to you. And from the looks of Whitney and Cocca, they’d not been treated with kid gloves, but try as I might, I really couldn’t work up any sympathy for them. Both were known slackers, and Whitney had a mouth on him that got him in trouble constantly, while Cocca kept me as his squad leader, in the First Sergeants office way too often.
As I walked up I could feel thirty sets of eyes on me, I stopped in front one I recognized as being a sergeant. I could see Whitney and Cocca straining to see what was going on, but prevented by a small soldier who pushed their heads back to the ground with his boot.
“Sarjento?” I asked in my limited Spanish.
“Si, yo soy sarjento, por que?”
“Habla English” I asked?
He nodded, then in English said, “I speak English, you have come for these sons of whores?” “Yes, I have come to collect them and their weapons” I tried to keep a straight face, realizing that as a sergeant, I couldn’t be seen laughing at their plight. It was difficult.
He motioned to the small man keeping them down, and several soldiers lifted them to their feet, not gently either. The small man reached behind his back and whipped a large evil knife out. He made a point of testing the edge with his finger so that both the prisoners could see how sharp he’d honed it. Only the tape across their mouths kept them silent, but their eyes were large and frightened.
He looked at me, and then in heavily accented English said, “In my country, we take the balls of our prisoners before we give them back.” Around us the ones who understood English began to laugh, and translate for the ones who didn’t. Whitney stood very still, but Cocca began squirming and trying to shout. The soldiers holding them swung them around and with a quick slice of the knife, Skinny sliced through the duct tape holding their hands and feet.
The sergeant handed them their rifles, helmets and other gear, then said, “Adios pendejos.”
As I walked them away there was a roar of laughter behind us.
“Sarge, them sumbitches kicked me in the nuts.” This from Cocca.
“What the fuck is their problem man.” Whitney asked?
I said nothing, just kept walking and smiling. It had been a pretty good day all in all, and we had another one like it tomorrow. We spent the next two days providing OPFOR for the South Americans, we weren’t allowed to ask where they were from, but just listening to their Training officer, we got a pretty good idea. Many years later, I wondered how many of them survived. I heard that the School of Americas was closed after someone decided that we were interfering with foreign countries, and it was rumored that Manuel Norriega himself had trained there, but I honestly couldn’t say. I can say with a firm belief, that it was as good training for us as it was for them. And, I can also tell you that in the next few times we provided OPFOR, Whitney and Cocca never, ever got taken prisoner again. As my grandfather would have said, “De burned child shuns de fire.”
