The Memoirs of Sam Renier

Chapter
25: The Doom of Shoeshine Charlie

July 22nd, '68. It was hot as the devil's barbecue pit, and
it was so humid I wanted to requisition some scuba gear for the men. But then I
figured that BravoDelta Group can take the heat,
'cause we were just about to blow up the whole goddamned kitchen!

CenComm sent us orders over the
wireless to torch some muddy village that was hiding SAMs
for the VC -- That's "Surface-to-Air Missiles, for you Frenchie
pinko commies who read the Washington Post
editorials! Assholes! We were supposed to take out some commie VC gun runner
named Shoeshine Charlie. No problem. I don't mind "red" as long as
it's got "white and blue" right after it. But when we got to Village
#76, these cretins may as well have been using hammers and sickles to plan
their rice!

As we approached the village, the first thing that happened
was a bunch of rotten kids came up with suicide bombs. Yeah, I figure if they wanna die so badly, BravoDelta
Group won't complain! We unleashed one hell of a barrage, and when the smoke
cleared all that was left was a couple pairs of sandals. Semper-fi,
baby!

Well, hell. Ya mow down a coupla kids and all of the sudden ya
get a bunch of old hags coming outta the mud huts
whining about their babies. Lemme tell ya: we know how to shut'em up! So
many targets, so little ammo!

Chalk it up to "Misc
Losses". If the NATO observer weren't already dead, this would have been a
great time for him to catch a bullet!

Damn mud huts wouldn't burn.

Shoeshine Charlie burst out of one of the huts with a Kalishnikov in each hand, guns blazing. He blew away McCornick and O'Mendez before I
got a bead on him. There ain't nothing like flipping
the toggle from "burst" to "full auto". I ventilated that
bastard with 44 rounds of the finest 'Merican
ammunition! He gurgled something or other before I put
a round in his head with my service pistol.

After we torched the five SAMs, we
implemented the BravoDelta 10:1 contingency. We
rounded up 20 VC scum, set'em up and knocked'em down!

Semper-Fi!