Lance Corporal Charles “Bookie” Bookout and his partner Lcpl Donny Tucker, members of the United States Marine Corp First Regiment, Left Camp Pendleton for the Philippines just last month. Donny said goodbye to his sweetheart, Gina, whom he had been steady with for 5 months, and Bookie said goodbye his sweetheart, a 1960 Harley-Davidson sportster, whom he had a lasting relationship of 3 years with, after pawning it out of a bet with a Navy officer.

Upon boarding the Navy operated AC-130B Spectre, Bookie gave Donny a nod and fist bump then strapped into the cargo bay. They felt the plane taxied around for a few minutes and they could feel themselves climbing quickly. Soon arriving at 30,000 feet and cruising. Bookie turned to Donny with a mischievous grin, “Care for some in flight refreshments?”

“What’d you snag?” Donny shifted his harness to get comfortable.

“I saved some Cheeze-it’s from this morning’s MRE.”

“Ssgt. Nelly gave me a bong son bomber, A gift for breaking his starch the other day.” Donnie proceeded to roll up his Jane and held out his hand for a lighter.

“Well sh*t, why didn’t you say something about that?”

“Give it a roll and we can send it up to the pilots when we get close.”

*****

After smoking for as long as they were in the air, Donnie got up to deliver a roll to the flight cabin. Bookie unstrapped himself and stepped over carefully to look at his cargo further.

The only other thing inside the massive cargo bay was a smaller sized pickup truck spray painted green with black spots. The tiny truck, stacked full with barrels with various labels, squatted all the way to the floor of the bay with the weight of the barrels. One of the barrels had a piece of tape on it labeled Barbeque sauce in scrawled handwriting, another was a kerosene barrel, two more were labeled 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T.

Donnie reappeared from the cabin with a stack of paper. Their orders. They had been assigned to run a test drive of a new chemical to be used in their jungle warfare. As they had been told, the goal was to turn the jungle to mush and prevent the guerilla warfare that had been such a trouble for generals to organize around when moving troops. VC’s would hide in the jungle for refuge and then use guerilla tactics at squads and other military installment near jungles. So the US government started shipping barrels of 2,4-D herbicide. Called agent orange, or barbeque during tests. It was to be used from an aerial assault and dropped into jungles.

The orders that the paper entailed detailed the mission that the two Marines would be executing would be the first ever test of Agent Orange. The mission was to jump into an American occupied flatland on the far outskirts of no-man's land, rendezvous with the truck that would be airdropped into the highlands and drive it into a village deep into the vietnam jungle. The brief instructed that the village should maintain neutrality and the VC would not be able to find them due to the Montagnard tribal roots of the area. The two Marines were to camp in a Montagnard village for the evening and guard the truck. At 0200 they were to move into the dense jungle and set up a sprayer system with the truck, hook up the barrels, employ the sprayed, set the detonator on the truck and get the hell out.

Operation Ranch Hand

United States Marine Corps Official Document.

Memo: Tests of weaponized agricultural herbicides

******

Within the next 15 minutes, the truck was deployed and the troopers were out the hatch as well. The troopers floated on down, deploying chutes at a low altitude to avoid exposure. And after a quick tuck and roll, they repacked their chutes,lit them aflame (so as to keep them from being recovered by VC) and hiked onward to the drop spot of the truck. The two had only 3 hours to hike 8 miles uphill to the truck, and 1 more hour to drive the truck 25 more miles through the highlands of Montagnard country. So the two got to a quick start, blazing their own trail with Machetes and chewing on caffeinated gum all the while keeping watch with M16s on their back in conjunction with Colt M1911.

****

Upon arrival at the Montagnard village they threw down their MRE’s on a rock to heat up their meatloaf and cobbler. They began to recon the village, wordless and weary, they saw children playing games around the open ground, yelling and squealing. They made their way into what seemed to be the town hall. The village wasn’t as civilized as most, clinging to its roots, but developing nonetheless. They stepped into a wooden shack, not quite a house, but still a building. They encountered a man, short with dark complexion and a scar on his left cheek. Clearly of Vietnam native descent. The man identified himself as Đa Minh and started speaking to Bookie flustered and quickly.

“Ma Qui! The Ma! You! America Man! You have the gun! The Gun! The Gun! You take gun and fight Spirit! Make it go–”

Donnie, on edge and worn out from his day, pulled his Colt quickly, fluidly and without hesitation while yelling “SIT THE F— DOWN!”

“The Ma! The Ma!–”

“I SAID SHUT UP AND SIT DOWN! I WILL NOT HESITATE!” Donnie threw the man on the ground, thrust his knee to the man’s windpipe and smacked the man's jaw with the hilt of his gun.

“Hey! Soldier! Soldier! He is of no harm! No harm, no harm!!” A beautiful woman stepped from the shadows, holding her hands up in a pleading defense.

“I’m a translator. This is the village leader, his son has been lost in the jungle for two weeks and we fear he has passed. We found his bow in the woods, broken perfectly in half, with no arrows near.”

“Back off Donnie. Let the man up…” Bookie spoke for the first time since they had arrived at the village. Donnie proceeded to shove the man to the ground one last time and rose to his feet, leaving the man to roll over on his side. Bookie snapped back to himself and realized he was holding his Ka-Bar out of its sheath. He quickly slid it back into its sheath, letting it settle with a resounding thunk.

“State your name.” Came the command from Bookie’s mouth.

“My name is Katherine, My Red Cross helicopter was shot down near this village and I’ve lived here as a translator for two months.”

“What is this man’s business? And why is he yelling?”

“His name is Đa Minh. He hopes every day for an American G.I. to arrive and search the forest for his son.”

“We have been sent solely to fulfill our mission and exfiltrate. Nothing more. But if we encounter anyone of this man's descent, we will send them to return to the village.”

“I wish luck unto your journey” came the reply from Katherine, after translating everything to the Village Leader.

“If you would be so kind as to supply us with a water source, we will deploy shortly.”

“Of course”

*****

After filling their canteens with yellowish-green water and dropping their ration of purification tablets under the filter, they proceeded back to their truck with nightfall chasing their footsteps. Upon arrival at the truck, they took turns standing at guard while the other ate and slept in the cramped, but comfortable cab of the truck. Once 0130 arrived, both were fighting sleep, uncomfortability, and the hallucinations of figures in the trees that accompanied a man yearning for home. To Bookie, who was on guard, there seemed to be ghastly figures, resembling apparitions, peeking in and out of reality. He knew that he had bad vision and it was deep in the night. He dismissed it as a side effect of both the former and the latter and opened the door to the truck, awaking Donnie and turning the key to the truck.

The truck groaned and thrummed with angst at its treatment, and ultimately clunked to a stop. Donnie gave the dash a slap and kicked the floorboard, half in frustration, half to wake himself up, while Bookie gave the key another crank, triggering the engine to sputter and spur to life, this time staying active. After letting the engine warm up, Bookie ground the truck into gear and urged it into the bleak woods of the Montagnard village.

*****

The Corpsmen rode in silence for 20 minutes until Donnie spoke.

“Location at 12 o’ clock, 400 yards.”

“Acknowledged” Came a unconscious reply.

Bookie idled forward for 200 more yards and looked deep into the woods. Another apparition faded into the distance. Donnie flinched. Bookie turned.

“You seein’ that s–t too?”

“Yeah. Keep F—in’ drivin’.”

Bookie finished out the next 200 yards in silence. They both methodically exited the vehicle and immediately rigged the barrels for deployment. Setting the C-4 into place on the ground, rigging barrels, and tightening straps. A tree fell in the distance, causing both of the soldiers to draw their M16s off their backs.

A moment passed.

A minute passed.

Bookie scanned the area once more. Nothing.

“Let’s get this done,” determined Bookie.

Returning to work, they finished out their penultimate barrel at 0220 and Donnie shivered. Even though it was a little chilly, he wasn’t shivering from the cold. A humanoid apparition, looking like a cloud of fog, stood near a tree. The figure, seeming to be able to control its floating, half floated, half stepped up the branches of the tree as it climbed. All while watching the GI’s intently.

“This country is hell” Donnie muttered.

Both men reached for their weapons, only to find that they no longer had them. The men turned to the truck to find a line of 6 of these apparitions. Each one held one of the soldier's weapons. The men froze, finding themselves stunned, shocked, and unable to move or even speak. As if held in a trance by these misty apparitions of haze.

The Phantoms slowly raised the thieved weapons, bending them slowly as they were raised.

Each weapon splintered, creaked, and cracked as they were raised further in the air. With a ominous, resounding crack, each weapon fell to the forest floor in pieces.

Silence followed for just a moment until the call of a re-up bird pierced through the solemn and strange tension in the dense forest.

A raw skeleton with bits of flesh and chemical dripping emerged from the direction of the bird's call.  The skeleton appeared to once be a human, about 5’ 8”, the entire right half of his body was only tendons and bones, patches of hair trickled down his scalp, chemical left large portions of skin falling off the bone as fabric falls of a ripped tent. In the skeletons' boney and gnarled clutches, a handful of homemade arrows were held and a Montagnard prince bracelet jangled with wood beads around the joints of a browned and rotting clunk of bones that was the figure's hand.

The Figure extended his hand in a strange, otherworldly welcome.

Bookie heard a wretched sound and turned to see Donnie passed out on the ground in a puddle of his own blood that he had thrown up. An Apparition appeared to be flowing out of his open mouth.

Then all at once, three things happened:

He heard the sound of a Huey helicopter thrum over the forest and a loud explosion in the distance, as well as the somehow peaceful explosion of the crash landing telling him he would never see home again. It had been shot down by VC.

The next thing that happened, Bookie saw coming just moments before it would happen. The barrels he personally rigged himself deployed and exploded in a sweet release, opening him up to peace and spreading its poisonous coating across the dense forest that he had grown to loath so much in the past night alone.

The third thing that happened was one that Bookie did not foresee, comprehend, or even witness. As the contents of the barrels coated the vegetation, and the hope of seeing home again was relinquished, the Apparitions all at once soaked into Bookie. Filling in the hole that losing hope left and sending any consciousness Bookie had left out of his flesh.

The only things left of any of the men were patches of skin, hair, tendons, and two skeletons of creatures once thought to be a man. The forest around melted as they stood and what was left of Donnie was already being swallowed into a shallow grave.

*****

When the Montagnards searched the melted forest, all they found was a shell of a pickup truck, and the broken weapons. Just as they had found remnants of the Leader's son’s bow. They would forever retell this story to any G.I.s that would seek shelter in their melted forest.

*****

The Mission was declared a success by the Sergeant Major of the Marine Corp and the Agent Orange program was continued. Tears were shed for the souls lost. But no one knew where the souls had gone, and no bodies were ever recovered.