A Lurping Safari

RLTW

I Don't mind the heat.

It's the humidity. The constant sweat trickles down your back. The chaffing. The sweat dripping in your eyes. The heat rash, the constant thirst. Your clothes are constantly wet from sweat.

Jungles are hell.

The trees block the breeze, trapping the heat and  humidity.

The canopy constantly drips on you. You usually can't tell if it's rain, dew or monkey piss. Everything stinks, you stink. Every time you get used to one stench a new one attacks.

It's miserable.

The insects.

Seems like all of them think you are tasty. What doesn't bite, stings. What doesn't bite and or sting likes to buzz your face.

You get covered in bite welts, constantly itching.

Everything seems to want to irritate you, kill you, and or eat you. Did I mention snakes?

I haven't gotten to the things in the rivers.

Huge fucking African Fish with teeth, giant freaking Piranhas ! Fucking Goliath Piranhas. Giant freaking snakes. Crocodiles, Hippos, these little bitty hook worms that can swim into your dick. No wonder the Skinnies don't swim.

Oh,

Tse tse flies, Bot flies, and Mosquitoes.

Give me the Desert any day.

No wonder ancient Humans got the hell out of here. Africa really sucks.

I thought triple canopy in Panama was aggravating. Jaguars, snakes, bugs, gators Caymans.

Africa has even more, crazier shit to screw with you.

And,

To think I volunteered for this?

What was I thinking? Fuck. Dammit, no one talked me into this. I knew what I was getting into.  I am such an idiot. Maybe Top is right, L-T's are stupid. If I were smart, I wouldn't be, here.

Fuck this shit sucks.

Ruck is heavy, shoulders back knees and thighs hurt.

My calves keep charley horsing. This rifle is heavy.  All six of us were carrying Beretta BM-59s, Italian rifles, 7.62 NATO. The love child of a Garand and an M-14. Damn fine weapons. Actually, better than the M-14.  The Italians got it right. We also had Browning Automatics. 9mm, though I also had a  Webley.  No one was supposed to know Americans were sneaky peteying around here.  We were making plans on keeping the Berettas when this job was done. Maybe a river crossing snafu or something.

As for our rats, the guys love me, I managed a collection of Italian and French MREs. Came with French wine and Italian Liquers. Uncle Sam could take a lesson from those guys! The perks of covert ops.

My bitch list about Africa is endless.

However, this , canopied nightmare has one good point.

Humping this ain't like in Georgia or North Carolina or Florida.

I ain't tripping over thick underbrush every other step.  The ground here, in the constant twilight is fairly clear between the trees. Everything grows up, searching for the sky and light.

Gotta count your blessings.

Gotta stop bitching and pay fcking attention. Ranger up.

Not just nature wants to kill us.

The natives ain't friendly, and we ain't s'posed to even be here.

We gotta job to do. Eyes open, it's time to work.

Besides,

Top keeps eyeballing me. I refuse to be a  butter finger butter bar.  I have to stay stepped up.  Ain't letting the team down. Fuck that shit.

I raise my rt hand, fist clenched.

Everyone stops, I take a knee.

I know without looking,

Five sets of eyes are open, five sets of ears are listening. Five masters of mayhem, wound up ready to rock.

I check the map, folded, strapped to my left forearm.  Flick open my lensatic compass. Check my bearing.

Fuck, we got off line I think. I wave Top forward. I am probably over thinking, Top is always on my ass about over thinking. I Show him. He checks his map and bearing.

I'm right. Which is to say, contrary to my fears I haven't gotten us off bearing.

Fucking jungle.

Briefly we try to figure out a foresite to get moving. There is none.

Climbing a tree is pointless. I order a break.

" Everyone, check pace counts." Three of us huddle, compare notes.

It actually looks like we ain't off. My guestimated error was caught.  Top of course had to talk about lost and wandering L-Ts. It was required.

" Move out."

Back to humping.

Two more hours at our current pace is the consensus.

Cool ,

We are ahead of schedule.

The  entire Team volunteered. Which is pretty great. No unknowns there. We had been together for five years. Time enough for my butter bar to turn silver, and, three counseling sessions. Had I been promoted, yeah, more money,  rank and all that. But, I would be behind a desk and out of the team.

These guys were my family. Brothers, fathers, friends. I would laughing, walk into hell with them.  Come to think of it we had done that a few times.

    Hell in Phenix city, and Pensacola and Juarez a time or two. We don't talk about Cancun, that was an accident.

I think Dante was right. There are levels of hell. All those places really were just right next door to hell.  Partied with Recon Raiders in Tijuana once. I think the locals there thought we were the ones from hell. That night ended with all of us two steps ahead of the Federales, and one step ahead of the cartel. Scooting across the border was easier than getting back  to Twenty Nine palms on foot and broke.

Top, he found a portal direct to hell in Clarksville once, it  Led to marriage, and divorce hell. Can't blame him though. Damn! Any  man would have lost his mind over her. I am pretty sure a few did.  A Mexican Italian redhead with the deepest blackest eyes you ever drowned in. Damn she was hot. Too bad she turned out to have a cold black Diamond heart. Top was actually happy to give her the house, his GTO , boat and truck to get out alive. Alimony is a vicious bitch, which is why he lives on base.

This place though. This place had to be the six hundred sixty sixth , basement level of hell. I, wouldn't wish DC  politicians  here. Hell, I wouldn't strand recruitment Ossifers here.  Ok maybe some Christians in action critters. God knows they would feel at home with the snakes and mosquitoes, being related and all.

Did you know that roasting or boiling human smells just like cooking pork? Yeah, that's knowledge I could have done without too. We're had established our LP/OP,   and were dutifully watching.

I had the bright idea of being up in the trees instead of down on the ground. Jungle Hammocks, are the Only way to fly.

A good Fifty to sixty feet up, swinging pretty  amongst the branches. No way anyone ground side could know we were there after we ghillied up our hammocks. Hung tarps above them. For the first time in days we were actually kind of comfy. The first night was quiet. We made radio check, and hunkered in. Ate well,  stood watch, waiting.

We were here to observe and report. Once the subjects moved past, we would follow, and report. Plan was, follow the kalashes to Charles Taylor. Should we locate him, there may be additional instructions.

From the things we had learned so far,

All of us knew exactly what we were hoping those instructions would be. Until otherwise instructed though, our ROE was to sneak and peak , observe and report.

I woke up in the predawn gray, I had been dreaming about bacon.  The entire team was awake and alert. The jungle had gone quiet, which is never a good sign. Nothing good ever happens when it gets quiet.

While the jungle life had silenced, the trail had gotten lively and noisy.  I smelled bacon of all things, there was chatter and  West African pop music playing. Some one had a boom box and it was getting closer.

A group was approaching. We settled in, waiting. Within about twenty minutes or so a group could be seen. They passed directly under us, never looked up once. Boom box blaring. Some pushing makeshift wheel barrows, covered with tattered tarps. There were thirty of them. All were armed, a mish mash, mostly AK47s, some SKS', one had an FN that looked about as big as the guy that had it shoulder slung. A couple wheel barrows had What I guessed were some RPG-7 s in them. Some of the guys were munching on what appeared to be haunches of cooked meat. Pork , we guessed from the smell.  Others were smoking Ganj as they trundled along, talking and laughing. Not one of the group could have been older than twelve or thirteen. Maybe Fourteen tops. 

After they passed, we waited a while. Scurrying like overgrown camouflage monkeys,  repacking our hammocks. Rappelled down and began to follow. They left a clear trail, easy and obvious. They followed a game trackway.

We split, Three moving a bit off the trail on either side and followed. Within a half hour we could see their tail end Charlies ahead of us and lagged back a bit. Working to stay out of sight.

I, found several cast off,  gnawed on bones.

As did everyone else. That was when we learned, they had not been eating pork .

Well, not the four legged kind at least.  Those little freaks had been eating long pig.  Human.

We lost our appetites at that point. What had been suspected, and rumored, had been confirmed. We followed them until Twilight  bombed us into darkness.

They stopped for the night. There was no organization they just plopped down where they stood. No sentry posted. No perimeter established.

They spread out haphazardly,  broke out more, meat, and ate. Drank some sort of alcohol, smoked more ganj, eventually all falling asleep.

We could have walked up and killed them all in their sleep. I wish now, that we had.

We paced them undetected for four days.

On the fifth, they approached a cleared region along the bank of the Lofa river. It was a fairly large encampment.

Jack pot. There were huts, tents vehicles.  Here and there were 55 gallon oil drums , set up as cooking pots. It looked like a brigade encampment.  Within the hour, our subject was spotted and identified. We had found Charles Taylor.

This was duly reported. Coordinates given. We were ordered to hold position, observe and report.

About 1800 that evening we received our new ROE. Observe, report, prepare for a fire mission.  "There's no assets anywhere near here! Wtf are they doing, airstrike ? Who? We don't have any assets..." Was the running commentary among us.

2100 hrs, we were informed via radio, that French artillery assets were moving forward. Should be in position  by early morning.

Over the course of the evening things got interesting. Two kalash , smoking ganj, chewing meat literally stumbled over Top.

The kalsh didn't make much of a noise as Top and Benson swarmed up and over them.

The shake down seriously pissed us all off.  Both had been gnawing human bones. One, had a necklace of Ears, lips and fingers.

The other had a  little baggy of mostly dried, pieces of flesh.  Eventually we figured out it was nipples.

The sick fucks. We stopped caring that these were primarily young teens. Kids.

They had had all traces of their humanity eradicated.  One of the lords army of Charles Taylor's  operating methods was to hit a village, separate out the boys, about 9-12 yrs old, then force them to kill , and eat the villagers, their family members.

Another tactic for when they didn't have time to post up and pic nic, was to kill all the men and children, leaving the women and nursing babies alive. The women, would have their breasts cut off, so they couldn't nurse the babies. They would also have their hands and or feet cut off.

We had seen the results of Charles Taylors handiwork. That was why we had volunteered for this op without hesitation.

Dawn couldn't come fast enough. Eight days of watching, recording, observing this insanity had left a mark in us. We wanted to kill them. Every single one. We had decided , amongst ourselves. There would be no crimes against humanity trial for Charles Taylor in the Hague. Nope, we would make sure that fucker was going to die.

TO CONTINUE.