Hey Mom
Sorry it’s been so long since my last letter, but as I’m sure you can imagine, things can get real busy out here! We’ve got a day of rest though, so I figured it’s time to catch you up on events.
Well, some events, there’s some I can’t talk about, but that’s just the way of things I’m afraid. Like yesterday. I can’t say where we were, nor exactly what we were doing, but it seems like as good a place to start as any. The Colonel sent us out in a pair of helos to hunt for a number of convoys heading through the jungle to North Cheltnam. We needed to find them, stop them without destroying them, secure the cargo in the trucks, and get it back into US held territory safely. We started out with a Loach for scouting the jungle while the rest of us sat off the sides of a Huey to check the river crossings. The Loach did really well and spotted a convoy almost immediately, and fortunately we were close by the Huey so our response time was, if I do say so myself, impressive.
On the slip side that meant our pilot, a new Air Force Puke called Greensquare, didn’t have time to scout for a landing site, so we had to get our boots on the ground via the rappelling ropes, which I’ve had bad experiences with in the past. No such worries this time though, and as the Loach made a few passes on the convoy to slow them down we all scrambled through the undergrowth to intercept. I spotted a Cheltie taking aim at the Sarge, well, Staff I should call him now, as we have a regular sarge too now. I distracted him, the Cheltie, not Staff, with a hail of bullets, but he replied with a hail of his own and, well, let's just say that I’m still not the best shot in the unit. Either way though, he didn’t shoot Staff, and Staff shot him, so that’s a win for the Corps!
With the convoy stopped the truck was searched but nothing was found so we started to pull back and came under fire from either reinforcements or remnants of the convoy’s guards. Somewhere along the line I think the Loach was given the go-ahead to attack anything south of us, to try and blunt that counter attack while we boarded the Huey. It was very effective in that, but sadly there was a second truck spotted only after the attack run had blown it up. I’m not sure the Colonel would have been happy with us if that had been the only convoy, but thankfully there were more, so we got a chance to redeem ourselves.
Back up in the air we went hunting again. I’ve recently been issued with binoculars, so I tried using those, but there’s too much movement. We took sporadic ground contact, but nothing too serious until the second convoy was sighted. I’d love to give you a detailed account of what happened next, but the ground fire from the convoy hit me and I blacked out.
Apparently they hit Greensquare too, but not so badly so with a medic working on him in the air he managed to get the Huey down so the squad could attack. Not an easy feat, but before you start to think he might come out of this looking good, he then pulled a typical Air Force move. Once the Huey was on the ground the squad went to go hit the convoy, the medic in the Huey went with them, and the medic in the Loach landed to take care of me. Soon enough I was back in the land of the living, and the Loach lands to pick up the medic. Now though, the squad is too far away to pick up on the normal radios, and only myself and the helos have the longer range ones. I move to the top of a small hill to try and get a better range to contact Staff or Sarge, and Greensquare just takes off, abandoning me in the middle of hostile territory with very little idea where we were! Mr Scatter Sir would never do that.
I might have muttered something to Darkon involving his bloodline for the next seven generations, but then I see him stack the huey into a tree and go down in a fireball, so I felt a little guilty and called in the Loach as I sprinted to the ridge he’d crashed on.
Still no contact with the squad, and no idea on how the convoy situation was going, but I got him clear of the wreckage and Bungalow went to work. Next thing we know there’s a Cheltie attack on us and we’re dragging him out of spicy smoke. Don’t ask. The Loach comes down for an emergency medevac to get him to a field hospital, and I have a brief moment where I realise that there’s the pilot, the medic, the patient, and me, but only 3 seats. Figuring I was toast I say nothing as it comes into land, but then the maths was made somewhat arbitrary as some form of explosive hits the cockpit and it crashes, taking me out with it.
Somehow, and I do not know how, Bungalow managed to protect himself and stay up. Darkon must have protected him I guess. With three patients he somehow gets two of us up in time to hear very broken comms from the squad. We have no clue where they are, but the smoke pillars from two burning helos give them something to aim for and they arrive just as the Cheltie that took out the loach decides he wants another go. This time, it didn’t end well for him. I think all I added to the effort was firing enough bullets in his general direction that the arriving marines could then put down fire that was actually effective, but I’ll take it.
They’d taken out the second convoy with no joy on what we were looking for, and had only a station wagon for transport, so I radioed for extract and we got a new helo, a Seahorse this time, sent to us at the village just to our north. A hostile village mind, and I ended up having a fire fight with a guy through boxes of fruit on a market stall. It was like some weird, messed up action movie. Eventually though we all got in the helo and it was back to convoy hunting.
Thankfully, the third one we found had what we were looking for, but as is their want, Cheltie did their best to make it as hard for us as possible. This convoy we spotted in good time, and were able to set down well ahead of it on the road to prepare an ambush. Unfortunately, as we had seen them from the helos, they had seen the helos, and stopped their advance. This led to us chilling out by some rocks for a while until it became apparent that they weren’t coming, and were instead going to have a go at shelling us with mortars. Moving to a treeline to get us out of view of their spotters we headed west, the general direction of the convoy, then south as we drew near to come at them over a hill that would shield us from them until the last moment.
It got messy real fast Mom. They had some sort of pickets out so the fighting was hard even before we got to a point where we could see the vehicles. Bullets were flying everywhere, but we were winning, slowly, but winning. I got inside a couple of vehicles to search and found nothing, but Wrench eventually found what we were looking for while the rest of us kept fighting. They fought hard, even when we had the convoy itself, but eventually we subdued them and could take stock.
The cargo we’d been sent to intercept couldn’t be taken by helo, I’m not sure if it didn’t fit, or was too delicate, but either way we had three captured vehicles to drive it all the way back to friendly territory, and the helo above to keep an eye out for us. Once we’d worked out where we could get to, that is. All our options were bad, with everywhere we wanted to get to on the wrong side of a large river, meaning we’d have to reach one of a very limited number of bridges, all perfect pinch points for hostile attacks. Assuming we made it that far at all!
Myself, Beltfed, and Clapman the medic had the lead vehicle, and I was navigator, which was going alright until we started getting reports from above of a large hostile blocking force, including a tank, at the very bridge we were heading for. It then got worse when one of the helos was shot down a short distance in front of us, and the other reported a large, direct firing gun pointing directly at a corner we were close to driving round.
As the lead vehicle we disembarked to go see if we could rescue the helo crew, and from the crash site we could see the reported gun. Clapman and Beltfed started picking off the gun’s crew and other infantry at the position (mine gun doesn’t have that reach) and then Beltfed noted that the gun was struggling to traverse (move sideways) with any speed, so we dropped as many Cheltie as we could at range, then dashed, sideways and forward, outflanking it and killing the last remaining crew before it could fire. Turns out there was a machine gunner hiding upslope too, but Wrench and Misstep had joined us by that point so he didn’t bother us for long.
The squad elements that were still with the trucks then came under attack, as those of us ahead spotted a large gun and spotter up on a hill above us. Orders got a bit chaotic as to which we were prioritising, but the vehicle team sorted themselves and we went for a run up a really very steep indeed him. I don’t think Air Force PT quite prepared Greensquare for that, but I guess he’s going to have to get used to it if he’s going to be down in the mud with us for a while. Misstep got up the top first and killed the gunner, I was a few paces behind and got the assistant.
After a quick sweep and clear we thought we had everyone and so I stopped to call in a resupply and immediately got hit from behind by someone we’d missed. I did at least manage to get the radio call out though, so the Boxcar was on its way. Now, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned it, but of late the Boxcar pilots seem to be dropping our supplies real early. I give them coordinates, and try to take wind into account as best I can, but I can’t think of a single time in the last two months that they haven’t dropped early, yesterday included. I bet though, as soon as I start compensating for that in my coordinates, they’ll grow a pair and start dropping where I ask again.
We got the supplies though, patched everyone up, and started driving again, pulling up in cover a little before the descent down to the river to cross the bridge. We had nothing that could take out the tank that air had reported before they became ground, so Wrench started packing one of the escort vehicles with the remains of his explosives to see if we could find a way to ram it. Fortunately though, as we rounded the corners of the rocks on foot we heard the sounds of friendly forces assaulting the bridge, and were able to cross to safety once they’d secured the bridgehead on our side.
After that it was as relaxing a drive back to base as it can be, and a beer in the evening shade to unwind. Local beer, not proper American beer, but war is hard, and we all have to make sacrifices.
Give my love to everyone
Morse