Vietnam: Jungle Nightmare

Parading through tangled vines, dense brush
Green fatigues twining with emerald canopy so lush
A humid vapor drifts overhead; perspiration founts gush
Under foot decaying leaves and rotting vegetation mush
The eerie stillness on all sides makes my adrenaline rush

We meander through the jaded obstacle course
Search and destroy our tour de force
Stalking amorphous foe who cunningly uses every available
resource
Walking through the valley of death with little recourse
Seeking the beauty of nature from the artifice of war to divorce

Rustling leaves ahead put unit on full alert
Silhouettes flutter, then through the plush seams squirt 
Enemy artillery moving into place and soldiers around our flanks
skirt
Without warning, enfilading fire from both sides did spurt
After momentary pause, I hit the dirt

Lieutenant screamed for the mortar unit
Crawling down an embankment; I dove into a pit
Head up, I fired at every moving figure in my orbit
 I heard 'fire in the hole'; the rampart became a fiery spit
Springing from the fiery inferno, I felt a piercing pain; I had been hit

A surgeon was called to my side
Blood flowed from head gash so deep, wide
After a shot of morphine, a bandana was around my head tied
On a stretcher quickly thrown, and through the mayhem we plied
Smoke and fire all around; tossed to and fro on the bumpy ride

Into the clearing, we cautiously strode
Snipers greeted us with volley after volley; our pace slowed
The pick-up point posse, now in view,  were in full alert mode
Earth-shattering fire from the helicopter team did the woods
explode
Serpentining to the helicopter, the rescue team with a daring lunge my stretcher did load