The Peasant

The following passages are excerpted from the chapter.

". . .There was a helplessness as you approached the coastline and came within range of enemy weapons. The troops on board the landing craft were baggage and could do nothing in their own defense. Armament on the landing craft was minimal, and I don't recall any at all on the boats, so there was nearly nothing you could do on your own behalf to counter the actions of an enemy who was intent on keeping you from landing. You had to rely on the effectiveness of prelanding bombardment of the landing area by aircraft and naval gunfire and bet on a certain degree of luck in choosing a beach in which the enemy was not interested.

The VC didn't care much about holding particular terrain features, so we were generally fortunate to have uncontested or lightly contested amphibious landings. There was always that moment of truth, though, when the craft rode up over the sand, engines laboring to hold the machine steady at the edge of the water, and the ramp dropped. There was no recourse but to charge from the landing craft out into the surf and onto the beach. Praying as you ran down the ramp that there was no machine gun in the treeline ahead that had sighted in on that ramp as the craft was in its final approach, that it was not now firing full automatic into the opening in the craft. Out in the open on the beach, you would run crouched on a crooked path, listening and looking for the signs of opposition, dropping to the sand to gain momentary cover and to make certain your men were with you, in contact. Trying not to think about land mines that might be buried in the sand. Then you would spring up and repeat the procedure, moving as rapidly as possible from the open to the protection of the dunes and the trees at the edge of the beachline."

". . .the peasant had wandered to within about 20 meters of the intersection. I estimated how long it would take from when I gave the command to fire until the howtar round would impact. I estimated the distance the peasant would travel in that time interval. And when the peasant was about that distance from the intersection, I gave the command to fire.

Time ticked on, the peasant continued his leisurely pace toward the intersection, and a single 107mm projectile traced its trajectory out of the hills and over the farmland.

I don't know with certainty what my intentions were then. I know that I wanted to register the battery to prepare the night defenses. I think I wanted to scare the hell out of someone whom I strongly suspected of being a VC scout. Thanks to what seemed statistically impossible accuracy, my guess was that he was mightily, though briefly, terrified. The peasant and the 107mm projectile met abruptly at the center of that intersection. And when the smoke cleared and the dirt settled, we could see no trace of the man."