The roar. The great growling scream of the enemy’s fire, the friendlies’ return fire, the mortars and the artillery howling in from overhead; these sounds engulfed Pfc Dave Burris as he huddled behind the questionable cover of a log that seemed to be the target for that munitions and noise. Plus there was the yelling. Sergeant Schoolman. The Sergeant was bellowing orders to the other men of the squad, prone behind that log, the line of defense, a downed tree midway down a jungled slope. Burris was amazed that he could hear Schoolman at all, over the wall of noise that gripped the surroundings. Finally, there was the .50 caliber machine gun that was throwing slugs against the exposed side of the log, chewing systematically at the wood, and that weapon had its own thick snarl to add to the roar. From the sound of things Burris was sure the weapon was firing from point-blank range.

Burris was alone at the end of the log. The lieutenant was missing, the platoon sergeant was dead. Seasholtz, the fire team leader was down. Schoolman was close by, there beyond another trooper, but Burris could see, could unbelievably hear, the sergeant directing his attention to the squad that was stretched out to his right – away from Burris at the end of the log. And the trooper nearest Burris, just an arm’s length distance to the right, was focused on Schoolman, leaving Burris alone at the end of the log.

Burris knew that somewhere beyond that log lay the 2nd Brigade’s base camp at Bear Cat on Highway 2. The Redwood City, California, native, however, did not know at that moment in which direction that particular mass of mud and barbed wire lay. He did not know that the log and the Company, and unfortunately he himself, were thirty miles east of Saigon, between the capital city of South Vietnam and the South China Sea. Besides, knowing any of that was not going to help get him through the fight.

So it was Burris’ lonely Vietnam War of 1966. His war at the end of the log, the end of the line in Phuoc Tuy Province. The end of the line for Burris and 3rd platoon and Charlie Company and the “Rangers” of the 16th Regiment of the First Infantry Division. Burris crammed another clip into his M16 and prayed that that log would hold, since he was the end of the line.

Then there was the dirt. Splattering into the Californian’s face. The ground out beyond the log, the exposed ground to the Pfc’s left was belching up dirt clots that were smacking into Burris’ face. Someone was shooting at Burris from out on the left. He jerked his rifle up to his shoulder, drew a bead at the space beyond his left. A gook was plainly visible about twenty yards off. But the VC was firing too low, churning up the ground. Burris retaliated with a burst. The firing from that direction stopped.

Yet, surveying the ground out to the left of the log Burris was not comforted, despite having eliminated the threat from the enemy soldier. For out there on the left, on that sloping ground, moments before – maybe minutes before, who could tell in a firefight – a squad from 4th platoon had protected 3rd platoon’s left flank. However, as Burris scanned that ground in the moments after firing at the VC, the Pfc saw nothing in that direction but great gouges in the dirt, clipped branches and dead bodies. 4th platoon had pulled out, had been forced out or been wiped out. Burris was the flank.

Now Burris added his own cry to the roar of combat. “Our left flank is exposed. I’m getting fire.” He howled at Sergeant Schoolman. Schoolman registered the new situation.

“Pull back. Get up the hill. Form a perimeter up the hill!”

Anywhere uphill, up that slight incline, was exposed ground. Burris saw that immediately. He was afraid to move, but he knew he could not stay behind that log, now the log meant death. He and the other members of the squad started a frantic low crawl up the slope.

Flat against the ground, flat against the churned-up dirt, shattered earth slick with blood. A trooper above Burris – a trooper between Burris and safety. Slow, painfully slow. “Come on, move, move.” Snap. Fire from the left. Snap. From the right. “Move!” “I can’t, I’m hit.” No time to help the guy. Scrambled over him. Left him. Flopped behind a tree. The roar followed.

Burris swung his M16 around and provided covering fire. The wounded trooper managed to crawl behind another upright tree about three yards to Burris’ right. Another soldier, John “Ollie” Lang, reached Burris’ perch. He also went prone behind the tree. The trees were five or six feet in diameter. Awful small for hiding two bodies. Behind the other tree, the tree that protected the wounded soldier, there was a clustered of busted-up GIs. The Californian watched as these men squirmed for position, pressed in to avoid the shower of bullets pouring in on the squad. Bark was flying off the tree, the air between the trees whirred with lead, the ground on both sides of the tree was flayed with machine gun fire. A mortar round exploded nearby. Lang was hit with shrapnel.

“You got room over there?” shouted an exposed soldier from behind the tree where the wounded troopers were crowded. “No, no.” Burris shouted back, but Lang waved the man over. Somehow Richard Garner made it through the hail of bullets to land between Lang and Burris.

“They’re in the trees,” someone called. Burris looked up, thought he saw flashes and threw some rounds into the trees. He was satisfied that he saw no more flashes from those particular trees.

Off to the right and to the rear of Burris’ position Sergeant Schoolman screamed, “I’m hit.” Farther off to the right the racket told Burris that third platoon’s other squads were being kicked apart. The perimeter had cracked and now the men simply huddled behind trees and waited to die. Burris stared up at the canopy of broken branches and hanging limbs. There was tear gas caught in the branches, adding to the shadows of the coming darkness.

“God, I’ve got to piss.” Burris said out loud. In combat, under fire and with no room to maneuver, the Californian needed to void his bladder. Garner, always one to crack a joke. “Well, stand up then.” For a moment the roar was replaced with laughter, but only for a moment. Then Burris was slammed by a bullet. The impact hurled the Pfc from behind the tree. Immediately the air around him thickened with aimed fire. Burris scrambled back behind the tree.

Garner was groaning. Burris could see that Garner had been hit near the base of the spine and the bullet had evidently exited Garner and continued toward Burris, where it bashed into an ammunition pouch on Burris’ right hip. Garner’s body had provided a margin of cushion that bled the bullet of its force before it reached Burris. The bullet had not penetrated the skin. Still, the impact had thrown Burris from behind cover and provided some desperate moments as he hustled toward the tree.

Then the roar thinned. Thinned, broke. Less firing from the front, fewer moans and wails from the right – from the direction of the tree where so many wounded had sought refuge. Not quiet, but a softening of the din. With darkness closing in, a new and terrifying horror crept onto the battlefield. The incoming fire had diminished. It was replaced by a woeful sound, a maddening sound that ripped at Burris’ psyche -- the anguished calls of the wounded outside the perimeter.

Randal “Peanuts” Prinz lay somewhere in the no-man’s-land in front of 3rd Platoon and from that horrid landscape he called out for his friend Richard Garner. For the three soldiers pinned behind the tree the thought of Prinz hurt and beyond reach was maddening. “Garner, I’m hit,” Prinz would call out. Lang hollered back, “Hold on Peanuts, I’m coming,” though the bullets and his wounds kept him from moving. Garner and Burris offered shouts of encouragement but they were unable to help their friend. Finally the cries for help dwindled away.

It was full dark by that time. Lang and Garner had determined to pull back, find the CP. “Don’t leave me here.” Burris said to Lang and Garner, but they were already gone. Burris was alone again. He noticed that his legs were wet. “Am I hit?” He asked himself. He felt down around his legs. He had pissed on himself.

A new roar flared up inside Burris’ head. “God-damn-it, I’m not going to let these guys walk over me,” he told himself, referring to the Viet Cong. He knew he was going to die, there was too much death all around him to doubt that, but he was going to do something about the manner of his dying. The soldier’s determination was short-circuited by the appearance of another trooper behind the adjacent tree – the tree where only dead lay moments before. This newcomer was carrying a M79 grenade launcher, a bloop gun. He called over to Burris, “How’s it going?” Burris thought the question asinine, especially from a soldier he had never seen before that moment, “How do you think its going?” The grenadier ignored the response and fired his weapon. The grenade hit a vine about three yards in front of the tree (a M79 shell needs a few revolutions before it is armed) and bounced back between the two trees. The grenadier attempted to bat the threat away with the M79, swatting at the grenade with the barrel of the weapon. The grenade exploded. The grenadier took shrapnel in the back; Burris was hit with a chunk in the elbow.

Burris drifted. Passed out. Darkness was a friend.

It was the darkness that roared then. Out of the darkness Burris was shaken awake when he heard an asshole gook gibbering over a bullhorn. “This is it,” the Pfc told himself, “the gooks must be getting ready for a final charge.” Burris studied the ground around him. He was alone. He readied his weapon. There were only the voices of the enemy, some female, some laughing. He heard them moving through the brush. He heard American voices, weak, strained, out where the perimeter had been before the VC pushed the GIs back. The American voices said, “please, don’t.” He heard shots.

Soon Burris caught the sound of movement closer to hand. The movement sounded like someone crawling through the bush. The VC were crawling toward him. Burris ducked his head from behind the tree for a moment – he needed to know what was approaching him. There was a human form crawling on hands and knees toward the tree.

“Who is it?” Burris hissed.

“Perez.”

Burris did not know Perez. Perez must have been from another squad. But Perez was a friendly. Perez meant Burris was not alone.

“Come on.” Burris urged as he reached out from behind the tree with his left hand. Burris snatched at the collar on the other man’s shirt. Burris had him.

Hollywood timing. Precise, as if staged, but real. Just as Burris gripped the man’s clothing in preparation to pull him to safety three VC rose up out of the mist behind Perez. Just rose up out of the mist and began shooting. The bullets tore into Perez’ back. Perez flopped down as Burris released him. Burris was engulfed in the roar of his M16 as he emptied the weapon at the advancing enemy.