TO CATCH A FREEDOM BIRD
The American soldier, wearing his scrambled green, black and brown government issued jungle fatigues, steel pot, flak vest, and carrying a sixty caliber machine gun, walked along a trail with twelve of his squad members at seven-thirty, the morning of July 7, 1966.
His squad was about two clicks south of the firebase outside of Quin Nhon, South Vietnam. 
They were returning to their post after picking up and escorting South Vietnamese Colonel Tri Le Cuong from his small village in the Binh Dinh province back to Quin Nhon.
He reached a small clearing on the trail, and had been daydreaming about catching the freedom bird in a few weeks back to God’s country, he didn’t break stride when out of the corner of his eye he saw movement through the partially dense jungle brush just to his right.
He gave his radioman a hand signal to call for the choppers and could no longer ignore the danger.
He could see what was about to take place, visualize it, feel it all over. He aimed the sixty caliber toward the brush where he had last seen movement. At the last possible second, he tried to change the outcome of the deadly ambush. 
He spun hard to his right and pulled back on the trigger, bullets screamed out of the barrel, the smell of spent shells thick in the air. What took only seconds seemed like eternity in slow motion.
Still pulling the trigger and standing his ground against the oncoming enemy. 
Every rifle began to bark loud, sustained blasts. He didn’t even try to catch his breath or bearings.
He stood tall and proud as they kept coming, catching them offguard.  A tiny scream of pain escaped from his lips as a bullet nipped his left leg.  It was involuntary, coming swiftly and unexpectedly. 
A moment of fear, weakness. He pulled the trigger again, and the gun roared.  He ran forward about twenty yards,  zigged and zagged around trees and through the jungle, not even feeling the cuts on his hands and face from the sharp edges of the elephant grass. Only a few fired now. 
The enemy soldiers running appeared terrified, scared out of their minds, being chased by a madman.
He stopped, standing now in the open, not caring anymore what happened. It was over, almost as quick as it started. He began searching for the enemy, looking for something more to shoot.
He could feel his heart pounding against his chest, trying to get out and shot again into the brush. Two NVA soldiers mustard up enough courage to come at him.  No way out of this one, he thought. Nowhere to go left or right. He didn’t want to run from them. 
That was no way to end this—end his life—by running away in battle, by giving up, turning himself over to the enemy. He dropped to his right knee and starred into the eyes of the NVA soldiers coming at him.
He could see the determination and then the panicked, disbelieving faces behind the fog of gunpowder. 
The sixty caliber started blasting, a high-pitched symphony of fear.He backed up as he kept firing and turned, looking back toward his squad, as they protected Colonel Cuong. 
The squad was holding the rear and side perimeters—a perfect ending, a little Alamo. The choppers appeared out of nowhere, blades sounding like egg beaters, screaming in protest, rotating beacon glittering, a soldier signaled for them to sit down. 
The Soldier was headed for the choppers.Colonel Tri looked frightened and unsure of himself.
“Get in the chopper, sir,” The soldier said in a commanding voice.
“Get in the chopper right now.”Colonel Cuong suddenly felt nervous and scared.
There was tension all through his body.
“All right.  All right.  I’m getting in.  No problem."
“Take err up?” The soldier screamed to the pilot over the sounds of the blades in an agitated voice, his face flushed a bright red, veins appearing to pop out of his neck. 
Colonel Cuong noticed that the sergeant's  hand was still on his sixty caliber as he sit with legs dangling out the chopper door. Both choppers were loaded, including the two fatalities and one wounded.
“Well—I’d say there must have been close to twenty,” Colonel Cuong finally said.
“Maybe a little more than that.”
Then he took out a pack of Camel’s and handed one over.
“Someone wants my ass pretty bad, thank you for saving it.” 
The soldier didn’t respond, he was thinking about the two boys in his squad that died protecting him.  He noticed the blood on his pants running down and dripping on his boot.

II
That night, lying in his bunk, he started to feel that he was losing control again.  He was beginning to frighten himself.  His life in-country had begun to revolve around a fantasy game he played called, Hit and Run. The game was everything to him, the only part of his life with real meaning. He walked across the compound from his tent, all the way to the consantina wire perimeter. 
He knew he shouldn’t be there, a soldier sneaking out of the perimeter of the compound. He couldn’t help himself, though, any more than he could that morning, as he charged into the enemy with gun blazing.
He stopped just short of the razor wire, rolled over on his back and inched his way clear, until he was outside the compound.
He was armed only with camouflage and a RTAK survival knife, a lightweight weapon favored by United States Army Special Forces.  
As usual, he had managed to leave the compound undetected by the guards. The night was unusually cool as he slipped quietly through the jungle heading toward a small village on the outskirts of the compound.
The villagers could be seen through the brush as he moved closer in to the huts.
He finally came close enough to observe movement and could clearly hear the high and low pitched voices.  His Vietnamese was good enough to make out what they were talking about.
He inched in a little closer to four men squatting around a campfire. One of the men was doing most of the talking and had his back to him. He was saying something about the children of the village, but the Sergeant could not quite make out everything he was saying. 
He understood the word Viet Cong when the man started talking again. The voice seemed familiar, but they all sounded alike to him.
Having heard enough, it was time for him to make his move. In a flash he leaped out of the brush, grabbing the one talking, lifting his chin with his left hand and quickly drawing the bowie knife across his throat, pushing him aside as he slashed another one. He jumped on the third man, stabbing him through the heart, and when he went for the fourth, which had turned to run but wasn’t quite fast enough.
Finishing him off he was back in the brush before anyone even got to the campfire.
He felt nothing for the men he had just attacked. To him they were the enemy and he was saving one of his own men or himself from being killed by one of them.
He awoke early, just before daylight, headed toward the latrine and then toward the mess hall, he could smell the coffee brewing.
The cooks were stirring around getting breakfast ready inside the big tent when he entered and two Military Policeman were sitting at one of the tables near the front. The generator outside the tent was running the lights and making noise, but he could hear the mess sergeant talking to one of the MP’s.
“As I said, I’ll bet you a hundred dollars it’s one of those Rock Army guy’s doing all the killing.”  “Those Koreans are tough as hell and they’re getting tired of being ambushed every time they go out.”
“Hell, everyone knows that village is full of Viet-Cong.”

One of the MP’s spoke up, trying to be heard over the loud generator.
“Well, we haven’t worried about it too much, so far the guy’s been killing the gooks, but last night he also got a teacher that lived in the village."
The soldier was stunned, but he displayed no emotion in front of them.
“I couldn’t help but hear you.”  he said.
“Who was the teacher that was killed?”  “I know some of those villagers.
"A young kid, hadn’t been teaching too long, the other MP said.
“His name was Kim something, I can’t ever get their last names right."
The soldier remembered the kid, Kim Thien. That’s why the voice had seemed familiar. 
“It’s a shame,” he said. “Too many good people die over here."
Not waiting for an answer he turned to head out of the tent, giving a little wave.
“Well, got to run.” 
“Make sure all of my squad’s up and ready." 

He could still hear them carrying on their conversation about who did the killing as he walked back toward his tent. He could feel the knife rubbing his leg in the boot. He just had a few weeks left.  He must stop the killing now.
It’s all just a game, he explained to himself. He must stop. He has been very lucky, and was the best player. As if to prove to himself he could quit, he took the knife from his boot, made sure no one was looking and threw it as far as he could into the jungle.