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dark.”
    “Holy fuck!” shouted Stan Alcon as he wandered over. “That’s the boom-boom girl I screwed the other day!”
    “Are you sure?” asked Lieutenant Bruckner.
    “I’m positive. She came around with her pimp about three days ago. Cost me five bucks.”
    “She was probably a VC, but we won’t know until someone from G-2 checks these documents she was carrying.”
    “See if she’s got my five bucks.”
    “There’s no money, you asshole! Only these papers.”
    I walked back to fill Harrison in. He seemed happy.
    “Good,” Harrison remarked. “We don’t get laid that much, so now them Charlies won’t get laid either.”
    The villagers started coming around then. After all the shooting the night before, they knew something was up, but we wouldn’t let any of them near the corpse. An hour later, an Intelligence officer and two GIs drove out in a pickup truck to recover the body. They loaded her into the back like a piece of firewood. As they drove away the villagers chased after them, perhaps to see if they could recognize the remains. When the truck was out of sight, we hiked off in the opposite direction as if shooting women was routine.
    Between the ambushes and hiding in thickets, each squad took turns going out on a RIF (Reconnaissance in Force) patrol. A RIF involved sweeping over large areas to make our presence known so the village would be less likely to be threatened by the VC. Except for booby traps, however, there was very little evidence of enemy activity. There weren’t a lot of them, but enough to keep us on our toes.
    The most common booby trap was a trip-wired hand grenade, usually placed inside a discarded C-ration can or tied to a tree. A thin wire attached to the grenade pin is stretched across a footpath just high enough so anyone walking by would kick the wire, activating the grenade. Our fear of hidden traps forced us to be constantly vigilant for wires or suspicious objects. Whenever a booby trap was located, we hooked onto the trip-wire with a rope then tugged on it from a safe distance to set it off.
    The RIFs and booby trap hunts were radical on-the-job training exercises, with very serious consequences. One afternoon, two men were considered lucky to receive only minor wounds when one of them tripped a poorly aimed trip-wired grenade. Also, on two separate occasions, men were evacuated due to heat exhaustion. Losing men to injuries or sickness was an expensive way for our platoon to gain experience. It was obvious we had developed some bad tactical habits. The men bitched about it, but only to each other. No one dared make a formal complaint for fear that Krol would make us hump all the more. That’s when I decided it was time for me to speak up. Even though I was the new guy with minimal experience, I figured there was nothing to lose by offering alternatives. Besides, if anything I said was of value, it might contribute to the success of each mission. With that in mind, I confidently went to the CP to discuss my concerns with Bruckner and Krol.
    “I’ve been watching how we operate,” I started, “so I thought you might be interested in my observations.”
    “Go ahead, Wiknik,” Lieutenant Bruckner said curiously. “Whatcha got?”
    “Well Sir, our AO seems to have its fair share of hand grenade booby traps, so I think we should be crushing our C-ration cans to keep the Gooks from using them against us. We should also be walking in single file, stepping where the last man did, not sweeping over the terrain like we’re trying to find booby traps. I also think we could eliminate the heat exhaustion problem if we humped during the cool of the morning rather than the blazing heat of midday.”
    Before responding, Lieutenant Bruckner paused to look at Krol who stared back at him with his eyebrows raised. Their silence worried me.
    “Sergeant Wiknik,” Bruckner began, sounding slightly irritated. “Do you think we don’t know what we are doing out here?”
    “No