Home for Christmas...

Segment Two

Cat Lo, hot, muggy, bugs and mosquitoes, and the random hand grenade over the wall from the street. Sure as hell wasn’t San Diego! But Ensigns went where the Navy sent you. Everybody on edge since it was Christmas Eve and there were rumors of VC movement. We drew the short straw and got sent up the Mekong to the border with PCFs 109 and 112. At least we had good old 131. It had been quiet run up toward the border in the growing darkness, at least until they took the shortcut at Cai Tau. The smell of diesel fuel preceded EM3 Flores as he came up to the pilot house to let me know the port engine was going to have to be pulled when we got back, but he’d nurse it through the rest of the patrol.