Chapter 11: Chapter 11 – The VC Engage in Fierce Shooting with the American Soldiers

Hoa, Tin, and I are going to the "World's Greatest Yard Sale." We jostle our way among rows of merchandise, and then come up to the midway area where the rides and carnival game booths are set up in rows.

We stop at one game booth, which offers a winner the best reward of a big flat-screen high-definition TV. In this game, the players must pick up the giant squid from a tank with an extra pliable fishing rod, which has a triangle-shaped iron hook attached to it by a string and put the squid in the next tank. 

It costs 15 cents each time you play the game. I paid 15 cents and played one time, but lost. I've paid for Tin to play two times, but he also lost. Hoa has lost two times, but on the third try, she gets the squid to curl its tentacles around the hook's edges. She gets so excited and flings the pole too hard, and the squid falls smacking on the tank's edge, slides off it, and lands flopping on the sandy floor, almost dies.

The game owner stares at Hoa. "You're not playing anymore. I absolutely forbid it."

"Tin, what school do you go to?" I say.

"I don't go to school now," Tin says.

"I suppose you want to go to the school where Mai and I are going, don't you?" Hoa says.

"Oh I'd love to!" Tin says.

The three of us scamper through the grass and get on the nearest walking path. Iron Triangle Forest is on our left. A voice comes through a line of tall trees at the edge of the forest, "Tom, hang on, help is coming. I'll get you out of here." 

To get to the tree line, we must cross a field of sword grass. Because the grass blades have serrated edges that prick the skin, we break twigs off a hibiscus plant and use the twigs to push the grass blades aside as we walk toward the trees.

We look through the trees and at a group of American soldiers gathered in a clearing in the forest. A soldier is holding a wounded soldier, whose head rested on his comrade's thigh. The wounded soldier is unresponsive, foam trailing down the side of his limp mouth, his eyes rolled up into his head so that only the white of the eyes is visible.

The tending soldier pulls out a folded paper from the wounded soldier's shirt pocket. Waving the paper to unfold, he looks at it, saying, "This paper shows the name 'Tom' as the recipient of the Medal of Honor from the United States government."

A MEDEVAC Black Hawk helicopter, painted with the Red Cross markings on its belly and side, designed to evacuate wounded troops, hovers in one spot in the air without moving, at tree top level, its rotating blades glistening in the sun. A soldier hangs on its landing skid by one hand, waving his other hand to the ground soldiers, saying, "The helicopter cannot touch down under sniper fire. Bring him to the helicopter."

Empty hammocks are hanging on the defoliated trees in the clearing. A soldier drops a hammock from a tree, and the rescuers put the wounded soldier in it.

The paramedics are carrying the hammock, with another paramedic moving alongside it, holding up an IV bag above the wounded soldier, tied to the hammock and not moving at all.  The paramedics make their way toward the helicopter.

Ropes are dropped down from the helicopter. The American Marines fast-rope down to the ground from the helicopter by way of the ropes. The Marines have hooked the hammock carrying the wounded soldier across two ropes, and the hammock is pulled up. Then the Marines fast-rope back up to the helicopter by way of the other ropes.   

A group of stationary trees move, then they fall to the ground. The VCs burst out of the fallen trees, and charge toward the helicopter, as they shoot at it with machine guns. With the hammock carrying the wounded soldier and the two Marines dangling on the ropes outside the helicopter, it lifts straight up and swerves away toward the Mekong Delta River, fire blazes flying toward the helicopter.

As soon as the evacuating helicopter is out of harm's way, The American soldiers open fire on the VCs.

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