Chapter 7 - Valley of Slime
Another valley to explore,well Mildred, no shots fired, no booby traps, no trip wires, no VC, no NVA. This valley was taken over by an enemy that crawls on the ground and swims the water of the land. This enemy was an enemy of all, no one could conquer this enemy, could not be defeated by the meanest VC or baddest NVA, nor the best of the US Military... Wow! What a horrible creature, this creature was crawling all over the ground and swimming the stream in the middle of the valley in heavy numbers. Very scary and horrifying.
As we moved in the surrounding jungle I could see strange movement on the ground coming toward me in a hurry, we were being attacked, no weapons we used against us. As we looked closer we could see the damned things crawling over our boots and up our pants, this is totally sick Isabelle, LEECHES by the thousands, probably millions in this valley. They win the war in this valley, everyone was stomping to shake them off our boots and brushing them off our pants, triple YUCK!. We moved out Di Di Mau (very fast). We ran low on water as we were unable to get resupply in this valley, so we went up to the top and got what we needed. We clearly established that the enemy below could keep what they had, we nor the Viet's were the least bit interested in this particular real estate.
As we moved forward we came across bomb craters that were made by 2,000 pound bombs......incredible ... a person could drive a half dozen automobiles down into these craters, amazing to see. One of the policies of the military was to dig up graves as we came across them. The reason was that often the enemy would bury weapons and ammo and make it look like a grave site. So, we did just that but for the time I was there with the unit, we never found any weapons, only Crispy Critters, those who befell to the Napalm Bombs, burned to toast. Of course, I did not have to participate as I was an RTO.
I have covered the worse and the most fun events of my tour in the Republic of South Vietnam, although I inserted humor into my narrative... well, Thelma, you can call this Black Humor as the City Police do in most urban areas, humor is what kept us sane. I heard and used profanity that would embarrass any Sailor. This is my story and it is all true from my eyes. Been there done that. I have a positive attitude about being there, for the experience, something to tell my Grand Children about, and my little girl Stacy.
We had no business going there to begin with, after the second world war the US Government, Eisenhower and his administration supported the French going back to reclaim their "COLONY", they felt that the Viet's were too dumb to govern themselves, well Lady Ga Ga, the Viet's handed the French their *** and ran them out of the county forever... the US should have never gotten involved. Vietnam could have had then what it has now and no American deaths, and no Viet's in our country, only in their own country. I will admit....I have a great deal of respect for the VC and NVA Soldiers, they had testicles bigger than a football. They would engage all 200 of us all by themselves or in very small units and keep their ground until they were killed... all! The Viet Soldier took on all of the US Military awesome power and Kicked our Ass Big Time. No matter what anyone may tell you, we lost that war to a Dink with an AK and bag of rice, we ran like scared dogs. I was there I know.
SP-4 L.P. Zimmerman
196th Light Infantry Brigade
Americal Division - Chu Lai
Republic of South Viet Nam
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