The dark black sky was not so far above them now that they were joined with it,
and the thick smoke and dark flames were far below, looking like a
second-grader's experiment with matches, his child's play ending when he burnt
himself on the hot blue and orange flames.  The roar of the airplane engine
drowned out all hearing.   Regardless, all of their senses were on alert, cocked
and ready.  They had to have all their senses on alert- They'd be dead otherwise.
 They flew 25,000 feet high above the flaring orange of fire and the purple smog
of smoke, high above the roar of battle and slowly moving closer to their drop
site, waiting for the drop hatch to open.

Charles Allen had come to 'Nam with his elite Special Forces team- the Navy
SEALS. It was a team that he had formed tight bonds with.  They had trained
together, shed crimson blood in the camps, and more than a few of their number
had broken a bone with a bad jump during practice.  Charles didn't mind the
training when he thought about- as the saying went- "The more pain you feel in
training, the less you bleed in battle".  The only difference between training
and reality, it seemed, was that the plane wouldn't be shot out of the sky in
training, nor would a Cong pop into your sight with a gleaming silver knife in
training.  Anyhow, when bones were broken, the purple, swelling bone was put in a
stiff cast and sling, and they were given 2 days' or so rest.  Then they were
sent back into the training.  That's how vigorous the training was.  The training
was so vigorous, that it had a schedule of 20-hour days.  Only 1 in 6 trainees
made it through.  Now it was finally over, Charles thought, and they were
hardened warriors, bodies bronzed and faces blackened.  They were ready for noble
deeds.

They were above Vietnam now, flying into a secure enemy-controlled area. They
planned to do a HALO jump- High Altitude, Low Opening, which meant they would be
dropped from a height as high as 25,000 to 35,000 feet and wait to open their
parachute until they reached a height as risky as 4,000 feet. It was incredibly
difficult and precarious- the jumpers had to be equipped with oxygen and heating
equipment, due to the lack of air, the free-falling maneuvers are extremely
difficult, and if aerodynamic stability was ever lost, it was almost impossible
to regain.  The advantage of the HALO jump was that the paratrooper's free-fall
was impossible to detect on a radar- the aircraft is above the detection of
radar, and the paratrooper's profile is very small, and as the body flew through
the air- he wouldn't be seen by the enemy air-traffic monitors.

Prestigious strategists had carefully drawn up the battle plan, and the
parachutists on this plane were on a mission to gather intelligence- enemy troop
movements, weapons, and strength.  It was a precarious situation these men placed
themselves into, and they were trained to be lethal machines. This team was
notorious around the globe- the 200:1 killing ratio showed that they were not an
ordinary gathering of men- they were meant to kill, as much as a rifle was meant
to kill.  They were meant to hunt, like a coon dog was meant to hunt.

These men, seven of them, showed different expressions on their faces slightly,
like a small child trying to hide his excitement, sadness, or disappointment. 
Behind the black mask, no matter what expression they wore, they also bore wary
expressions.  One of the team members was red-faced, excited for battle, his M-60
out and strapped close to his bulging body. Another one was almost blue, from
nervousness, Charles supposed.  There was a pallid, yellowish expression on one
man's face- the HALO left many of them ill looking.  Their senses had to be on
full alert- it was important so that they were functioning at 100% that the
government often fed them Dexedrine, ensuring that of all things, they wouldn't
fall asleep.  They were going to gather intelligence, and if need be, launch a
few grenades and detonate their weapons.  Even their weapons were painfully
planned- for a seven-person team, there was 2 Stoner semi-automatics, 1 9-mm
grease gun or shotgun for the point man, one or two M-60s, and two car-15
semi-automatics with grenade launchers.  They each carried 115 or so pounds of
weight on them, and while no two teammate's garb and backpacking gear was alike,
they all had night vision goggles on over the gas and oxygen mask, and everything
was tinted shades of lime and forest green.  They all had a camouflaged uniform
underneath the black-tinted skydiving equipment on to protect them against the
Jungle betraying them to the Cong.

"HOOK UP!"

At the sound of the squad leader's cry, the men, one by one, placed their gloved
hands on their black backpacks and hauled them onto their strong backs.  The men
braced themselves as the hatch released, the cold, gray wind howling into the
cabin of the airplane.  It was an automatic motion, practiced over and over in
drills and scrimmages, only this was the real thing.  The dark gray sky had a
hint of the rising sun at the edges- flares of orange and pink near the horizon. 
The ground far below looked ordinary, green with trees and brown with dirt, but
was in fact the site of a notorious enemy.  Only the machinations of the Team
were showing through, their motions automatic and fine-tuned in training,
programmed like robots. All other thought was tucked away into the conscious- the
area of the brain that wasn't active.

Charles was the third person to drop out of the plane, placing himself in a
starfish posture.  He was ripping through the air facedown at a terminal velocity
of about 120mph, arms and legs laterally extended, his back arched. He was
pressing the central core of gravity against his solar plexus, the whooshing
sound of the wind like an old Chevy truck's engine, loud and roaring even through
his mask.  It was freezing cold, despite the heating equipment that he carried on
him, but steadily warming as he neared to the hot jungle with his teammates.  It
was as if the war was zooming up radically through a zoom lens, becoming more and
more of reality as they got more and more close.  He wasn't scared now.  He was
virtually undetectable, him and his team, and they were certainly not the
yellow-bellied type! These men were America's best.

He started to maneuver himself towards the destination, which was a few miles off
of where they had dropped.  His altitude was rapidly dropping, and he now hung at
10,000 feet.  He was ready to go now, his gun securely folded against his chest.

4,000 feet.  The parachute exploded above him, giving his body a healthy yank as
the chilly blue air caught his black parachute, hauling him to a near-standstill.
 He winced at the pain of the backpack's rough tug at his body.  He ignored the
pain and guided himself slowly down., sailing in the air as smoothly as a dove. 
The rest of his team had exploded their chutes, one by one, floating in a heaven
above the red and yellow flames far below, slowly becoming more aware of the
soot-black smoke.  Their senses, Charles knew, were all on full alert.

They landed.  Charles was glad that the Viet Cong had not noticed them. One by
one, the team landed and they quickly moved into the camp.  Hidden by the thick
jungle foliage, they moved quickly into their positions.  They were hidden for a
while, sitting in trenches, observing the enemy.

It was unforgiving work, Charles reflected.  You couldn't move, you couldn't
sneeze, cough, or breathe loudly.  You couldn't go to the bathroom. You could do
it in your pants, of course, but then the Cong would smell it and jump on you,
his yellow face flushed with red rage, and slit your throat in a moment.  Your
crimson blood would spill out with your life- and your entire mission would be
wasted.  Finally, after what felt like hours in the sweltering heat (at 30,000
feet, the cold sounded much more appealing than the thick humidity of Vietnam),
the enemy troop started to gather.

The SEALs' faces were serious in observation, and as soon as the Cong left and
were out of sight, the men broke free of their prisons.  They silently walked
around the camp, making sure there were no guards left.

There would be no guards, of course- this particular bunch of Cong were wrapped
in the illusion that they were protected well by the thick jungle, and that
nobody would find their camp.  They were wrong.

Charles quietly drew his Stoner weapon, slipping it over his shoulder as he
opened the door to a hut.

Seeing nothing, he walked in confidently to look for maps, notes- any sort of
clues that the Cong was headed towards the American camp.  Two of the other men
had followed the Cong; dropping as far back as a quarter mile to ensure that he
wouldn't be detected.

A tapping noise.  Charles went on alert, spinning wildly to find the source of
the noise.  Expecting a grizzled Viet Cong, his weapon was ready to fire, eyes
unseeing, when the cry arose-

"Please! Not shoot! Not shoot!"

A girl was bound and gagged in the corner, her arms bloody due to fighting the
bonds for the last hours or days, however long she had been trapped. Her long,
dark hair hung in tangled skiens around her fine features, which were dirtied and
bloodied.  She had a large bruise on a cheekbone and more faded bruises scattered
around her body.  It was easy for Charles to recogize that without the assault,
she could easily be a beautiful woman. A tear trickled out of the wide, fearful
eyes, as cryptic Vietnamese words poured out of her mouth.  Charlie's weapon
lowered slowly, and he walked over to the girl.

"Untie the poor lady!" A voice inside Charlie's head screamed, while another
voice whispered words of traps, spies.  Charlie quenched the whispers, and cut
the thick twine, letting the trembling girl loose in moments.  She stood up
weakly, shivering with fear still, nearly falling to the ground when she took a
step.  CHarles's heart, hardened by the training and the war, melted at the sight
of her.  She was a slight woman, her dirty rags barely covering her body.  Though
she was small, he still appreciated the sight of the first woman he'd seen in
months.

"Ameri-ke?"  The words were spoken slowly, carefully.

"American.  America."  CHarles pointed to himself.

"Much thank, much thank," the words slipped out hestaitingly.  SHe shook still,
and when she went to give Charlie a hug, he could feel her thin, wiry body
trembling undereath his.  Despite the destituity of the woman, the awkwardness of
the situation, he felt himself becoming attracted to her. His cock hardened just
the slightest, but he quenched the feeling by thinking of his comrades'
discussion of the Vietnamese women.

"One of those bitches probably got enough VD to kill off the entire squad," his
team captain had said gravely, taking a swig of his liquor.  The team had laughed
about the Vietamese "Whores".

"Damn, Jeff, you've probably had yourself a whore a time or two," shouted
Charlie's teammate, sending them into another gale of drunken laughter. While
CHarlie was sure the natives had done their share of putting out to the American
soldiers, he wasn't inclined to call this woman a whore.  SHe was a lady, after
all, and he wasn't one to judge just yet.

She rubbed slightly against him, still hugging him.  CHarles didn't fight her. 
Oh, he tried to get his body to move against her, replaying the insults over and
over in his head.  "In Germany they got the beer, in France they got the body
hair, in Vietnam they got the whores!"  But he couldn't.

Finally, he tried to force her away- weakly, moving his arms away and using his
hands to try to push her slightly.  She was hanging on him and showed no sign of
letting go.  He moved his hands down on her waist, and she moved her body against
the calloused hands, pressing herself against him closer.  Her hand slipped down
to his cock, which, despite all the mental self-control he used to restrain it,
was as hard as a rock.  She squeezed slightly, and he surged in excitement.  He
gave up the fight, and sunk into this woman's seduction.  SHe slowly worked her
way into his affections.

THe idea of taking advantage of a woman filled him with remorse, while at the
same time, the idea of - it'd been _months_.  He shoved the thought from his
head, and it came back no more.  She moved her palm slightly against his cock,
using her obvious experiece to stimulate him where he needed it.  She rubbed the
stiff underside of his cock through his pants, then tried to unbutton the buttons
that fastened his fagitues.  Charles moved down his hand from her waist, and
undid his pants for her.


She dove her small hand inside almost ethusiastically, pulling down the top of
his breifs to expose his cock.  Already steaming from the heat and humidity of
the jungle, it felt abnormally warm against her palm.  Still, he groaned softly
at the sensation when she wrapped her fingers around it and squeezed.  Her
fingertips couldn't reach one another, but it still felt good, and when she moved
her hand up and down his shaft, heat surged through his body.  He pushed it
against her hand, urging her to go faster and harder, enjoying the feelings that
streaked through his groin.  She stroked it as she fell to her knees softly, and
stuck her tongue out.  She licked his cock, starting from the root, and slowly
running her tongue to the head, swirling his head with the tip of her tongue.  He
reached down and worked his fingers in her tangled, knotted hair, squeezing her
head softly, encouraging her to continue.

Again, there was no doubt that she had experiece as she opened her mouth and
slipped the head of his cock inside, puckering her lips around it and massaging
it with her tongue.  His cock was begging for more attention, surging in her hand
and mouth, his fingers pressing against her head. Suddely, she drove his cock
inside her mouth quickly, to the hilt.  The feeling made him groan, and he felt
his testicles tighten.  He wasn't too long to go before coming, and his body was
tingling with pleasure.  He slowly fucked her mouth, and she deep-throated him
without hestaition.  When he saw that it was not causing her any discomfort (that
she showed), he started to go a little faster, feeling the warm heat of her
throat.  He thrust it in and out as she made love to him with small mouth, and
finally, the tightening in his balls reached an apex, and his body was enveloped
in flame as he cried out loud in the manner of a wild animal.

He felt his orgasm everywhere, his entire body eveloped in it, the agony of the
pleasure focusing on his cock and balls.  He groaned and cried out loud with
every thrust, shooting sperm down her throat, which she swallowed obediantly.  He
was lost in his world of ecstacy, and after what seemed like forever yet not long
enough, his orgasm faded away.  He gasped for hot, sticky breath and loosened his
fingers' grip on her head- he had been holding her head so hard that it could
have left bruises.  Feeling sorry to have caused her pain, he stroked her head
almost affectionately, squeezing it gently in apology.  Her wide, dark pools of
eyes looked up at him, and she licked up the last bit of cum off of his cock.  He
panted slowly, recovering his wits, then took his time in buttoning up his pants,
not wanting to leave her grip on his legs.

The girl was barely over 17 years of age, he thought as he looked at her. Just a
damn kid.  Charles would have been saddened, had not his teammates returned right
at that moment.

"Hello, fucker!" A man- one of Charles's teammates- spoke outside the hut,
greeting Charles.  The enthusiastic gait of the team slowed abruptly to a stop
when the saw the girl on her knees, the look of trembling trepidation back in her
eyes.  Charles was sure he looked guilty- he sure as fuck didn't want his
teammates to think this girl had just given him a blowjob!  They'd say he was
just as bad as a Vietnamese whore.  He pointed at the woman and said, the lie
quivering on his lips- "Cong.  Spy, no doubt."

The other men pounded into action as Charles wound the thick piece of twine that
was lying on the floor around the girl's wrists, ignoring every instinct in his
body that told him to stop tying her, to tell everyone that she'd just done him a
huge favor and was one of the "good ones".   However, that kind of trust could
get you killed in this country, and Charles felt a twinge of guilty apprehension,
then said to himself- "Any of the other boys been me, they would have taken the
blowjob, Vietnamese or not!.  It comforted him little.

"Doesn't feel nice to be tied up like this, huh?" Charles growled into her ear,
trying to appear ferocious to his teammates.  Her eyes pooled with tears, and she
started to cry.

The girl looked into Charles's eyes.  She was trembling with trepidation and
sobs, yet still holding herself up high, despite the fact that she was surrounded
by five mean-looking, huge men with their weapons cocked and pointed at her, and
that she had just been betrayed.

"Tell us your name, little girl," said Charles's squad leader, Jeff Syke. The
girl didn't respond. "Ten gi!"

"Phuong."

The team's "language specialist" answered in a short burst of incomprehensible
Vietnamese.  The girl was sullen and quiet, her tears gone and her survival
instinct in its stead.

"I said if she didn't answer our questions, we'd gut her and hang her from the
tree for his folks to discover his bloody red remains among the green leaves."
Syke said quietly.

The girl started to talk in a rapid-fire succession of foreign words, and Syke
interrupted with a loud grunt.  The girl was silent.

Syke asked the girl- Phuong was her name, but Charles couldn't seem to think of
her as Phuong- a question, and the girl shook her head.  "Search the camp.  SHe's
got friends.  Charles, stay."

"Not alone, eh?" Charles asked menancingly, his knees quivering secretly at the
thought that she was indeed a Viet Cong affiliate.  "YOU FOOL!" echoed inside his
head, as all the possible cruelties he'd heard of Cong women doing flashed
through his head.

"Nope.  Claims that the rest of them will be back soon, so we'd better keep it
quick."

"Ask her where they're at."

Syke asked her, in Vietnamese, where the rest of the team was headed.  The girl
refused to reply, her eyes hardening.

"Tell her we've got a shitload of our men on their tails, and we'll find out
anyway.  And they're all as big and ugly as us." Charles growled.  He, while
acting superior and warriorlike, didn't feel that way at all. His stomach was
jelly, and the pitiful look of this woman- damn, if this was America, she could
be his wife! She was scrawny, and yet had curves.  Her eyes were pitch black,
tinted with hate, the white of her eyes yellow.  Her blood looked black against
her brown rags, her disheveled hair framing a white face that could have belonged
to an innocent soul.  It was as if the girl was a battle between the day and
night in her face alone.

The rest of the men had apparently found another Cong to hold captive, judging
from the distant screams.

There were 3 gunshots, and a few seconds later, a loud "WHOOSH", as the other hut
was grenaded. Only one man was dragged back later, without a bullet hole, proof
that more Cong had been killed.

The girl's eyes opened wide and she started yelling something to her comrade, who
didn't look very old, perhaps 17.  Just about the same age as the girl.  Syke
grunted once again as the entire squad cocked their rifles and pointed it at the
two captives, and the prisoners were silent.

"Get answers, NOW!" one of the men encouraged, "We've got 'bout 100 Cong back
there coming back to the camp."  The man who spoke was the one of the two that
had been trailing the Cong.  All six members of the team were there, in the hut,
towering above two scared teenagers.

"Hmm." Syke considered, then shoved his rifle roughly against the new one. He
leaned over and yelled into the other prisoner's ear a scramble of words.

The other prisoner's face was a brown mask of shock, and he started to babble. 
From the pleased look on Syke's face, it was obvious that he was giving answers.

"All right, we've got our information.  Shoot 'em and let's get out of here."
Syke said, and with a look of contempt, added: "I would have died rather than
turned my troop in."  His voice was dripping with black poison, the edge directed
at the guy who had squealed.  Suddenly, there was a gunshot, and a bright spray
of blood.  The red substance splattered on the girl, and the girl started to weep
in hysteria.  SHe knew he was going to die, just like the boy who was slumped
over in her lap.

Charles tried to avoid the girl's intense stare of hate- tried to not see the
dead body of her comrade in her lap.  It was against his training. Everything
about this was against his training.  The Jell-O stomach was against his
training, the hesitation was against his training.  He moved out of the hut with
the rest of the men and Syke radioed the helicopter to come pick them up.  One
man hesitated behind the team a moment to shoot his M-60 at the girl, then moved
out.  The tortured scream of the girl in the hut left behind made some of the
hardened men wince, and soon was a fading memory, already becoming another
yellowed page of Vietnam.  He stood aside with the team, as the men with the
grenade launchers blew up the huts in the small camp, one by one.  The fire
flickered in the sun's growing light.

Would he have turned his team in, in that boy's position?  He didn't know. Would
he have died nobly for his team like Syke said (rather boisterously), bragging
that he would do it without a second thought?  SEALs were trained to have tighter
bonds with each other as a team than most married couples. They had to think
alike to be the most efficient team they could be.  They were assimilated into a
team.

Charles saw the eyes of the people that his team had just killed.  People that-
she could have been his wife in another time, another life.  His hearts tugged
slightly at the thought of her violent death, so soon after she'd given him
pleasure.  He thought about the second youth's disloyalty, his willing to give up
the lives of his team to save his own life (which hadn't happened even after he
betrayed his troop.)  Would he have died for his team?

In his thinking, Charles started to wonder how much of his country he could
believe.  He had looked up to- no, adored- the Navy SEALs, and now wondered if he
was a true SEAL.  SEALs were trained for many situations- they were not trained
to have thoughts like this.

In Vietnam, hesitate once in a yellow passion of thought, and you were dead.