The sun lazily sunk to the horizon, the air outside was still warm, too hot for a December day. A cold breeze blew through the air, cooling the world to a more moderate temperature. We had stopped at a small village for a late lunch. We were all spread out over a large area, turning the dry dirt green. I sat under a palm tree for shade, the leaves a bright healthy green. I was sitting quietly with my friends while eating a small bowl of rice when I heard a faint noise. Truong and Vinh must have heard it too because they lowered their bowls of rice and stopped moving completely. Their faces were deep in concentration as they too, tried to identify the object that was making the sound.
I looked up at the rest of my regiment spread out on the field; they too have now heard the sound that has transformed into a constant humming. All of a sudden, realization dawned on our faces and we scurried to our feet. Our officers came running towards us, their whistles blowing frantically. The drivers dropped their things and ran for the trucks. Starting them up, the drivers quickly tried driving the trucks out of the open field and into the jungle. Truong, Vinh and I quickly got our things packed up and ran for the jungle to conceal ourselves and we waited. The large part of our regiment had already escaped into the jungle but some people were still running. Some of the villagers who came to help hand out food for us were also running beside them.
The sound was deafening as the aircrafts closed in, they passed by too quickly for us to shoot at them. As they passed over us, they started dropping their bombs which fell silently down to earth. Each aircraft dropped three bombs and every single one burst into flames as they impacted with the ground. The once peaceful fields we were lunching in had turned into an inferno. Screams exploded into the air and I saw a soldier who had sat in the same truck as me stumble from the flames; his whole body a blaze as he struggled around. He let out a deathly scream as his skin melted away, his blood boiled in his body before he fell onto the ground for the last time.
My heart pounded away in my chest as I stared at his lifeless body. Above my head, a second wave of aircraft came in and bombed the village. Blowing massive craters in the road and sending pieces of huts into the air. I shivered deeper into myself as the image of the burning man came back into my mind. The image was too raw to forget. A truck erupted into a ball of flame as the gas tanks got too hot; ammunition carried by the truck exploded too, sending people crashing for the ground. Even as far away as the jungle bushes I lay in, I felt the heat of the inferno burning my face.
After the air strike, our officers waited a few minutes before giving the all clear before ordering us to get the wounded and help as many people as we could from the village. From my hideout in the jungle bushes, I thought the worst was over but as I got closer, I saw more bodies were lying all over the field. One body of a fellow soldier lay on his front. His back sliced in half by a piece of shrapnel from the truck. His upper body lay a meter away, his intestines strewn over the grass, blackened by the flames. His blood oozed slowly, decaying the field with black liquid. His legs were so badly burned, they were shriveled up and the muscles had melted off the bone.
It was my first taste of battle, how could I stand the horrors. Yet, I felt a sense of pride and passion, and found some strength in this dark hour. I found a determination to go into battle from this scene. If this is how foreign invaders treat the Vietnamese people, then I am more determined to fight and free the Fatherland.
