U.S. Navy Seawolves The Elite Hal-3 Helicopter Squadron in Vietnam

Monsoon season. The night is covered with a blanket of humid air you could cut with a knife. It is perfectly still. The only evidence of movement is a lone, olive drab, thirty-one-foot-long fiberglass patrol boat drifting in the river. On board is a U.S. Navy SEAL Team frozen in time, sweat trickling down camouflaged faces with watchful eyes. Seven men wait silently around the twin .50s--two .50 caliber machine guns--on the front of the PBR (Patrol Boat, River) manned by one of the River Rat sailors. Another River Rat is at a single .50 caliber gun at the rear of the vessel. They watch for any sign that their position has been detected. There's an old chief petty officer at the wheel, using all his experience to guide the PBR with its two diesel engines and jet pumps to its destination without making a sound. By nursing the throttles ever so gently and using the current, he navigates the river to get the SEAL Team where it wants to go. You can't hear the motors at idle speed because of the foam built around them to kill the noise. Total darkness. With the thick cloud cover brought on by the approaching monsoon, you can't tell where the river stops and the jungle starts. That's where the fourth River Rat comes in. He's got his sweat-dripping face pushed into a large black rubber cup that has a radar screen inside it. It's the only way he can see the shoreline. A slight breeze begins to blow across the bow, signaling that the rain will start at any moment. By whispering directions and using a combination of hand signals to the chief, the two of them maneuver the PBR in to the muddy bottom of the shallow water, which is the bank, as careful as a mother handling a newborn babe. As the boat drifts to a complete stop on the bank, the Seals slither over the side without making a sound, like a school of water snakes eager to get back home. As the last one leaves the PBR, the entire squad disappears from sight of the River Rats. They have been swallowed up once again by South Vietnam's insect-infested mangrove swamp in the Delta region. Tom Moloney, the point man, is the first one to penetrate the dark jungle edge after leaving the muddy bank. A twenty-eight-year-old first class petty officer from Tennessee, the five-foot-nine Moloney is wearing tiger-striped fatigues and an olive drab rag, which used to be a T-shirt, stretched over the top of his head and tied in the back like a pirate's. Camo paint covers his face. Moloney moves slowly, almost on his hands and knees in the mud, looking and feeling for booby traps. You don't move in a hurry in this swamp, doing what he's doing, unless you want to get sent home in a bag. He carries a Stoner (a belt-fed M-16), with a 100-round drum of .223 ammo attached underneath, as with an old-fashioned tommy gun. He also has 800 rounds of belted ammo strapped around him, adding to the pirate image. Six V-40 grenades (each about the size of a golf ball), one concussion grenade, one gas grenade, two pop flares, and a directional flashlight with colored lens hang from his web gear. His first aid supplies consist of a waist pack with a can of serum albumin, two morphine syrettes, and battle dressing. Attached to his upper chest on his web gear is a Gerber Mk-1 knife with a Smith & Wesson model 22 and silencer in a shoulder holster. Last but not least, a LAAW rocket is strapped to his back. Following in Moloney's tracks is twenty-two-year-old Fritz Heitjan. He carries an M-60 machine gun and enough ammo to bring a water buffalo to its knees. His face is painted light green, dark green, and black, like a confused zebra. A K-bar knife is taped to his shoulder, along with a directional flashlight with colored lens. The third man to break the edge of the swamp is their leader, twenty-five-year-old lieutenant junior grade Richard Benedict from Wisconsin. At six feet two inches and 185 pounds, he projects a commanding presence. His weapon of chKelly, Daniel E. is the author of 'U.S. Navy Seawolves The Elite Hal-3 Helicopter Squadron in Vietnam', published 2002 under ISBN 9780345455109 and ISBN 034545510X.