THE LUCKIEST VIET CONG ON EARTH

One of my jobs as XO on Nui Ba Den was giving visiting VIPs the tour of our perimeter defenses. On one tour, a colonel asked if I’d ever seen enemy soldiers on the adjacent mountain.

“No,” I started to say.

He cut me off and pointed. A boulder. An enemy soldier. Sunning himself.

Through the binoculars, I could see he wasn’t worried about us at all — he’d picked a spot facing our positions like it was a beach chair. I decided to have some fun. I told the bunker line what was happening and to ignore whatever came next.

He was well beyond the range of everything we had except the 4.2-inch mortars. To get his attention, I put twenty rounds from a .50-cal his way. The tracers burned out a third of the distance in, so we couldn’t even adjust fire. Waste of good ammunition. The colonel was spotting for us through his own binoculars, and the soldier never so much as glanced up.

Now I had a colonel watching, and a sunbather who wasn’t impressed. Time to try something with more range.

I called in the mortars. First WP round fell short and left — a polite tap on the shoulder. Second round landed closer. Now he was interested.

I walked in three HE rounds. That was the eviction notice.

He stood up. He gave us the finger. Then he strolled into a cave while the rounds impacted around him.

The colonel just rolled his eyes, grinning. He thought the whole thing was funny.

We plotted the soldier’s exact location, in case he came back out for a darker tan.