Good afternoon Mum
We’ve moved inland so I’m not sure how long this will take to get to you. I hope the added delay hasn’t worried you overly, but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about it until we’re back at Maxwell. I’ll keep writing though, I promise. I’m not sure if I told you about Camp Sarge and LZ Savage before, but we’ve been here a while back and it can get quite intense at times. There’s a beautiful river though, it’s just a shame about all the artillery scars on the hillsides. I think this really was a beautiful bit of the country before the North Chelt started pushing their contraband cheeses. We have Captain Pointer back with us, and are stationed at Camp Sarge, which is downstream of the airfield. We have a helipad, and lovely hilltop view, but also a lot of work to do.
Yesterday that work was a patrol up a tributary of the main river here, up to a radio relay station we were at months ago, Vandergrift. Now, I quite like the place, but it’s at the top of a steep hill (I used to think it was very steep, but my perspective has changed over the time I’ve been here), and the North Chelt forces just keep trying to take it out. It’s one of their favourite hobbies or something. Turns out they were at it again, so off we went. I’d reassure that we didn’t have to walk the whole way, as we got a ride from a helicopter that looks like a weird banana (Mr Scatter Sir informs me it’s a Piasecki H-21, or Shawnee, but I’m just going to keep calling it a flying banana because seriously Mom, it’s a flying banana, it’s just not bright yellow). Anyway, a lift partway would have been nice, but this time, we ended up going to the south east in the helicopter, then getting out and walking north west. I think it was just the easiest way to get us across the river if I’m honest, I don’t think Camp Sarge has any boats, and a bit of extra walking is better than a swim in potentially hostile waters. Well, I say north west, when we actually got on the ground we had to go west, because of the river, the hill, and then the river again would have been in the way if we went directly north west.
Proceeding in the treeline on the south side of the smaller river. Unfortunately, not too far upstream, and a little further into the trees, was a small North Chelt supply outpost that we spotted (or they spotted us, I don’t quite recall). Wilbur went down, but our medics got him back up, even though he is an Air Force Puke. More on him later though. It took a while to clear out the last stragglers of that game, as one of them with some grenades ran up the hill further into the trees, but eventually we got them all and moved on westward until we found another group of hostels who’d even gone to the lengths of laying punji traps. They’ll ruin anyone’s day, and we ended up having a bit of a messy fight as they even went so far as to bring a machine gun to the party. Things did get a bit interesting on the radio though, as a lot of the squad don’t really make a clear distinction between how they pronounce Morse, and how they pronounce Morris.
Fortunately, almost immediately after clearing that contact we arrived at our first village, which was full of friendly locals, and I’m sure it would have some lovely scenic views if we’d had the chance to stop and look. We needed supplies though, so I called in some, and then a couple of us went on a hike through the jungle to find the crates while the others rested. The problem with our supply crates you see, is that they’re green, and the problem with the jungle is, well, it’s green. Bright red would be nice. Resupplied and ready, we set off again.
It felt like quite a long walk before we picked up the river again, by this time much more of a large-ish stream than a river, although judging by the shape of the banks I suspect it gets much wider in the rainy season. I mention the banks, because someone on point, probably Torrent or Morris, spotted an odd mound on the far bank as we were walking. I won’t go into details as to what it was we found exactly, but it was a harsh reminder about why we need to defeat the North Chelt forces. There was some sporadic gunfire from across the river, so we waded and clear it, then headed upstream again to find the perpetrators. Turns out they weren’t too far up river, but did have a small rocky plateau to defend themselves from, so we tried calling in some artillery for support, but when they decided to do a ranging shot with a cluster shell we figured we were better of without them and pushed forward, taking the position without too much trouble. Suspecting that there might be a hostile position on a hill across the stream from us, we forded and left the banks briefly to check it out. As it turns out, it was clear, so once everyone had their breath back we headed west back to the river, effectively doing the two shorter sides of a triangle instead of the long one. We did confirm the hill was clear though, and that’s important.
We hit the river again just downstream from the village of Three Canyons. So names, cos there were three canyons as the river meandered and flowed round some small islands. Well, canyons is a bit of a stretch, but I don’t mind some poetic licence now and again. On entering the village it rapidly became clear that everyone left there was dead. It also rapidly became clear that whoever had done it had left a load of traps around the huts, which some of the squad diligently cleared as they searched for any information or intelligence that might have been left behind. Torrent found a North Chelt or two across one part of the stream to the east of the village, but they didn’t trouble him for long, and once people stopped clearing the traps we were off again. Although not perhaps as far as we’d’ve liked, for very shortly after the village a couple of sampans came downstream, now they’re not unusual to see, a lot of the locals have them, but ones with machine guns on the front are rarely just fishing. Wilbour made a play for a transfer to the Navy by jumping in one of them after we’d disabled its previous occupants, but it turns out they were also keeping landmines in there, so he ended up flying like a proper Air Force puke.
There were then some other explosions up river, and a call over the radio saying friendly air was hitting some hostile positions that way, meaning we had to leave the river and push west to remain clear of them,before turning north again to read the relay station. Of course that then got us into the range of an artillery strike the ARVN were calling in, but we managed to coordinate with them and avoided any friendly fire incidents as we helped them clear out their targets. I’d managed a couple of minutes to grab a bit to eat not long before, so when we started the final ascent up to Vandergraft I wasn’t feeling too bad. Well, not until I called them up to let them know we were approaching and they mentioned they’d just called in artillery on their surroundings as well. We all made ourselves very small until the ground stopped shaking beneath us, then ran up the last of the slope and into the camp before the attacking forces reorganised and struck again.
From then it was a case of restock, resupply, take a quick smoko, and then help them man their defences. There was a slight lack of defenders, even with our number added, so the Chelt kept finding ways to sneak in through the wire, but we held for a good long time before command sent a helo to pull us all out. They had intelligence of a large force on the way that we didn’t have the numbers to hold against, so they pulled us out to regroup, and I’m sure we’ll be back up there soon enough to get it back into friendly hands.
Other than that there’s not much going on really, give my love to Dad.
Morse