Purple Haze

Baxter was deep in the shit tonight. He was 5 clicks north of the
Cambodian border and lying flat on his stomach in triple canopy jungle.
Blackness surrounded him on all sides, but he could hear the breath of
his teammates a few meters away. Baxter was a seasoned veteran of SEAL
team 2 and was used to the harrowing nights of uncertainty and elation
that came with doing 3 tours in country. He was a member of the MOD
Squad, a select unit in Seal Team 2 that seemed to always be getting
the most FUBAR missions available. He'd been "promoted" to Mod Squad
duty after he had banged the Captain's girlfriend one night on furlough
in the States. Mod Squad was a collection of the most insane or drugged
out mothers available. Pretty much a death sentence if you didn't keep
your shit squared away. A sound in the bushes made him jerk a little,
but it was only a rat doing some late night scavenging. That's pretty
much what they were doing also. Baxter quietly laughed to himself about
the irony of it. A rat looking for cheese, us looking for Charlie. The
four greenies he had popped were really kicking in now and his brain
was as lucid as a razorblade. He could cut steel with his glance; the
hundred yard stare of all field operatives. Much the way his father cut
steel in the Pittsburgh mills. Only this shit was much hotter and a
hell of a lot more dangerous. The Mod Squad had been sent out tonight
on a snatch and run. Grab a gook for interrogation, and try to get out
alive. Staying alive was all that was on Baxter's mind tonight though,
because he was short and had two weeks and a wake-up. He'd served three
tours for a reason. He'd been back to the States and wasn't very well
received there to say the least. He'd been spit on at LAX last time by
some pretty little long haired bitches, and had had enough
pseudo-hippie jargon shoved on him by his little brother to make him
sick as fuck. No, he wasn't going back to the States when he got out.
He was going to Paris to become a writer. Start an ex-patriate
community there like the Lost Generation. Fuck, back then at least the
REMF sons a bitches appreciated their war heroes. Sensing the rest of
his squad around him, Baxter thought quickly about their history.
Angel, the California surfer, was a 6'4" blonde golden child, and had
come to them from Team 1, the west coast outfit. A pretty boy and
constantly primping, Angel couldn't resist visiting the whorehouses
when they were in Saigon last month. He'd been assigned to Mod Squad
for catching the clap one too many times. Someone Baxter knew over at
division said that Angel had set a record for catching gonorrhea that
would never be broken, at least this side of San Francisco. He really
thought himself quite the lady's man even though he did give a gook
whore an extra twenty to let him hold her all night and call him her
"Little Johnny". He was the man on the Sixty though, and was a stand up
guy. Dog nuts was the point man and tunnel rat. He was a foot shorter
than Angel, and had dark, greasy hair and beady, constantly shifting
eyes. If you had a tough job, just give it to Dog nuts. He stayed so
fucked up on morphine all the time that he was oblivious to fear, pain,
and the like. Dog nuts was a serious Section 8 son of a bitch. He
didn't even want out. He said morphine was too hard to cop in the small
Nebraska town he was from, and when asked about a particularly
dangerous tunnel he would say "Grooooooovy, man." Somehow, he didn't
manage to get canned though, because he was in tight with the corpsman,
Halo. Halo was a born-again Christian, and gave Dog nuts all the
morphine he could stand if he would listen to his preaching about Hell,
Heaven, and Jesus Christ. He was of medium height, but he was built
like a brick shit-house: thick in the shoulders and hands like a
Detroit pipe fitter. Halo was an anomaly in the Mod Squad. He had
volunteered for Mod Squad duty after he'd seen the unit all piss drunk
and fighting it out with some Force Recon marines in Da Nang. He felt
it was his calling from God to save their souls from the torments of
the Underworld. What Halo couldn't seem to grasp was that they were in
Hell and kicking ass and taking names. They also had enough Thai Stick
and Budweiser at the hooch to keep the demons away indefinitely. He
would certainly singe his ass pulling yours out of the shit though, and
he'd been able to save Baxter's leg when some shrapnel from an RPG
rocket had got him a few months back. Gunner's mate Lenoir, the sniper,
was a cool, calm, and collected bastard. He was tall and lean like a
damn stalking mountain lion, and his high and tight haircut really set
off his chiseled features. Lenoir, or Le Noir, was French for "the
Black". The name fit. If there ever was a black hearted, evil bastard,
it was Gunner's mate Antoine Lenoir. His shit was certainly squared
away at all times, and he was probably the most cold-hearted killing
machine motherfucker that Baxter had seen. When they were ambushed last
fall, Lenoir had personally saved their asses. He had stayed cool and
covered their withdrawal WAY in the rear until they could pop smoke and
get airlifted. He had made the chopper just in time, and had only taken
a few scratches. Baxter tried to get him to tell them how he had done
it, but all he could say was "Voodoo man, fucking Voooooodooooo." He
was from New Orleans Creole stock, and Baxter guesses rightly that he
had learned a few tricks while at the family reunions. Lenoir had been
assigned to Mod Squad duty because the Captain had found his methods
"unsound". Lenoir was just TOO ruthless, and had left a string of VC
ears on the door to the Captain's hut, along with a decapitated rooster
and a stick of burning incense. Last of all, there was Lt. Commander
Skolnick. Green as the grass and the most uptight, fuck headed shitbird
Baxter had ever seen, he was of slight and had a real problem with post
adolescent acne. He'd been demoted to Mod Squad duty when he'd
committed a disastrous faux pas at a formal dinner for the Joint Chiefs
in D.C.. He'd been caught jacking off in the bathroom by and adjutant
to the Admiral in charge of Special Ops. A serious fucking blue-blood,
and a fourth generation Navy man, he'd gone to the Academy and thought
his shit didn't stink. He'd signed up for the SEALs as an attempt to
prove to his "Daddy" and the whole world that he was something that he
was not: a hero. His "Daddy" had pretty much written him off after the
incident though, because he didn't want his own reputation tarnished
with the boys at the top of the Navy food chain. Skolnick was another
reason Baxter was getting out. The little chronic masturbating Academy
fuck was wrapped too tight for op's into Cambodia and Laos, and was
probably going to get himself and the rest of the unit greased one day.
Talking. Faint voices in the distance. Baxter knew he heard them.
Crack. The snap of a twig sounded like a siren out there in the bush.
Flipping the selector on his CAR-15 submachine gun from single to
three-shot burst, Baxter began to feel the hellish sense of
apprehension that comes right before a firefight. He'd been here dozens
of times, and had made his share of confirmed kills, but he had never
gotten that sense of total peace that killers like Lenoir got before
the shit hit the fan. That's when it happened. The Purple. Purple Haze
danced before his eyes and he knew he wouldn't get it tonight. Lenoir
must have been secretly summoning spirits from the nether regions
because the Purple Haze was buzzing him into a lust for life that he
had never known. He'd only had the Purple Haze two or three times out
there in No-Man's land, and every time he had had it he was utterly
confident that he wouldn't get killed. BOOM! Mr. Charles's point man
had tripped the first claymore and they were off. Keeping low, Baxter
fired three shot bursts at the lead gooks, dropping two. Angel's M60
was a beautiful sound and his tracers were like deadly fireflies
darting between the shadowy column. Halo's job was the most difficult.
He was to snatch one of the rear guards in the middle of the firefight,
making sure that he and his prey didn't get their asses shot off in the
process. Baxter emptied one clip, and then reloaded with the second
clip that was duct taped to the first. Baxter actually felt joy at
having the silence broken, and was gunning down gooks with delight. He
saw a hail of tracers from a gook AK-74 squad machinegun flying off in
the opposite direction, and that's when he knew the gooks would be done
for. They were panicking, and firing at shadows instead of the battered
bastards that were actually killing them. Baxter tossed a willy peter
(White Phosphorus) grenade in the direction of the AK-74, and watched
with delight as the two gooks manning it erupted into burning white
hellfire. He wasn't without mercy though, so he turned his CAR-15 on
the smoldering figures and with a couple of three-shot bursts, put them
out of their misery. The Purple Haze was rocking full force by now, and
Baxter was so elated that he thought that he was going to come out of
his skin. Whether it was the greenies, the Thai Stick, or Gunner's mate
Lenoir producing this plethora of color and conflagration of fear, he
didn't care. Bullets whizzed by him on all sides, cracking and popping
like little deadly firecrackers, but Baxter was unscathed. Cries of
anguish were starting to be heard now from the Vietnamese column, and
Baxter knew it wouldn't be much longer now. That's how firefights went
in the 'Nam. Ten minutes, and you're either dead, wounded, or extremely
grateful to be alive. There were no prolonged battles out here in the
Green Hell that was the Cambodian Jungle. No Anzios or Verdun's or
Waterloos out here in the stifling hot, dark, and primordial jungle.
Just short, deadly skirmishes accompanied by the screeching of monkeys
or the cries of the macaws. The firefight almost over, Baxter started
looking around for his buddies. Dog nuts was blasting away on full
auto, not even realizing that by now most of the gooks were either dead
or bleeding. Lenoir, cool as ever, was wiping blood from his K-Bar
knife. He had been going around to all the bodies, removing an ear from
each to add to his collection. He had a virtual pagan Rosary of ears
tucked beneath his shirt, and relished new opportunities to expand his
assortment. Diddy boppin' over to the kill zone, Baxter stumbled over a
body much too big to be Vietnamese. It was the Lieutenant Commander.
His face was blown out, and almost unrecognizable. Dumb fucker. Should
have been a Submariner like his Dad. Fuck all Naval Academy pricks.
They don't teach you how to put your face back on in any classroom in
Annapolis. Halo had accomplished his mission, and as Chief Bosun's Mate
it was up to Baxter to get the team back to the LZ. They encountered
only banana trees and shadows though, because all the VC in the area
had either been killed or captured. Really amazing, since usually Mr.
Charles was able to retaliate swiftly and silently when any of his
columns were hit this deep in Cambodia. They made it to the LZ and
Trailer Court popped purple smoke just for the occasion. Baxter had
never mentioned the Purple Haze to him, he just knew. As they were
flying back to their Hooch on the other side of the border, Baxter
looked at the captured VC that was riding in between him and Angel. He
wondered if the gook had ever seen the Purple Haze. Nah, Jimmy Hendrix
wasn't really big in HIS neck of the woods