Jungle Stalkers

For me, being in the Army was like a kid playing a game. Just before basic training was over, a notice was posted on the board of our day room asking for volunteers to sign up for a special unit being formed. They called the unit Long Rang Reconnaissance Patrols or L.R.R.P.s for short. It sounded interesting, so I signed up. After we finished the first three weeks I knew I had found my place.

We were trained by four of the weirdest looking men who had been imported from the Central Highlands of Vietnam to teach us Jungle Warfare. They looked as if they just stepped out of the pages of National Geographic. Their primitive people, called Montagnards (Mon-tag-yards), had lived virtually undisturbed in the Mountainous Highlands of Vietnam for thousands of years. It was said by the Vietnamese people that they were such fierce fighters even the North Vietnamese Army (N.V.A.) gave their villages a wide easement.

These four men taught us the art of making and using such primitive weapons as cross-bows, spears or rig a simple limb to become a catch snare to trap a small animal for food, or to be used as a weapon as deadly as any modern weapon used today. Yes, these were four of the weirdest looking men we had ever seen, but we quickly learned if one of them pointed to you and yelled “frog”, you better jump.

We played their games and had a lot of fun in the process. After four months of very hard training, we were shipped to South Vietnam, and that is where my story begins. My code name is Little Fox.