A few words from the author: Thank you to all who read my story, and a bigger thank you to all who reviewed it.

Warnings: contains blood

Enjoy

February 14, 1969; 1237 local time; Somewhere East of the Cambodian border

Ichigo's squad had been in the bush for a full week, during that time he had seen nothing. Absolutely nothing, no enemy whatsoever. The only thing that they found were a few tripwires and a couple punji pits (1). They had been steadily moving in a southern direction, setting up ambushes on paths during most nights. Today they plodded a path through the ferns and shrubs of the jungle undergrowth in the stifling heat of the afternoon. The sun beamed down from above, making trails of light as it shone through the canopy. Marty was on point, he crept along the path, his eyes scanning the area for any sign of danger.

Marty raised his hand, everyone stopped.

"Booby trap." Marty whispered and pointed to the small wire that was stretched across the trail at about shoulder height, the wire was holding back a bamboo spiked device that would swing outward and stab the person unforturnate enough to have broken the wire. The device resembled a green bamboo grid with sharpened bamboo stakes attached at the crossings of the green grid. Marty got out of the way and carefully cut the wire with his knife.

Nothing happened.

Marty bent down and examined the wire, there was nothing extraordinary about it. He stood up and looked forward, unknowingly triggering the trap. Within nanoseconds of standing up the bamboo swung out and caught him in the torso. His green shirt slowly aquired black stains as blood flowed out from the places where the spikes had pierced his body. Slowly the lifeless form started to slump over the spikey green picket fence. Urahara ordered Ichigo and Renji to take down the body. Ichigo took Marty's dog tags and put them in his pocket. They divided up the contents of his pack and called in for a helicopter to evacuate the body and bring in a replacement.

That night the jungle heard small sounds of weeping.

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February 17, 1969; 1403 local time; somewhere East of the Cambodian border

Ishida?

Ichigo couldn't believe his eyes; the black haired, four-eyed marksman that had come to Rukongai with Ichigo back in 1967 had jumped out of the huey. Al and Havoc loaded Marty's slightly smelly body bag into the helicopter.

"Hey, look who wanted a second helping of the shit!" Urahara said, greeting Ishida with a friendly expression and a chuckle.

Ishida greeted his old comrades and got to know the replacements.

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February 18, 1969; 1348 local time; somewhere East of the Cambodian border

The men in Ichigo's squad were high on a jungle covered cliff having a late lunch. The afternoon sun shone down on the valley they were patroling. The lush green valley spread out below the men following the course of the muddy brown Nung river (2). Ichigo, Renji, Al, Miles and Havoc were sitting in a circle on their helmets eating. A gentle breeze wafted the tall bamboo plants and rustled the leaves on the trees. Urahara and Ishida were on the edge of the cliff looking down at the valley.

Urahara saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned to his right, and saw a faint cloud in the distance coming from the west, he looked in his binoculars. There were several dust clouds, Urahara zoomed in and saw what he guessed were vehicles.

"Renji! get that radio over here!" Urahara said, beaconing to Renji.

Renji got onto his radio and called the fire control center.

"Thunder, this is Delta, enemy convoy spotted, grid reference Alpha, Bravo, Niner." Renji said.

A voice crackled over the radio, "Delta, this is Thunder, targets confirmed, Big Birds on the way, estimated time to arrival, 30 minutes. Sit back and enjoy the show gentlemen."

"Big Birds are on the way, orders are to sit tight and enjoy the show." Renji said to Urahara.

"Anybody bring popcorn? I'm all out." Al asked.

After what seemed like hours they saw two giant planes, B-52 Stratofortressess (3). The bellies of the metal giants opened up and countless bombs began to fall. The noise was deafening as the bombers pounded the jungle below. The bombers turned around and dropped more bombs, and then went over the area a third time before heading back to Thailand (4).

The men looked at the destruction, a patch of jungle as wide as a four-lane highway (5) had been completely devastated.

Ichigo and his squad climbed down and walked over to the site where the bombs had fell, there were craters so large that when Ichigo climbed into one, he could not see anything except sky. They looked around for any survivors, there were none. The only things they found were vehicles that were destroyed beyond all recognition and two or three unidentifiable human body parts.

That night Ichigo felt glad that he was not a VC.

(1) punji pits were pits dug into the ground with punji stakes inside, these pits were covered with a flimsy top that would cause a person to fall in, possibly impaling themselves.

(2) I doubt there is a real Nung river, but I needed to call it something

(3) the B-52 was the biggest bomber in the US arsonal, it could carry up to 60,000 lbs. (27,200 kg.) of bombs, mines, missles, and other explosives.

(4) B-52's origionally were deployed from Guam, and then in 1967 the US got permission to use Tapao Airfield in Thailand, which made the trip much shorter.

(5) four lanes each direction, so it's really much more like an eight-lane highway