This is borrowed from another forum I read frequently. Dedicated to all who served and those who never came back.
Part 1 - The A ShauHalloween 1968 found PFC William ‘Billy' Bones in the 1st Brigade LRRPs, of the 101st Airborne, in Vietnam's A Shau Valley with the rest of his six man LRRP team. Now, the A Shau is about the scariest place in all of ‘Nam because Charlie completely owned the place - it's his backyard. And the team had just spent three days in this jungle ‘spook alley'.
As the last day of a successful recon mission was coming to an end, the LRRP team decided to spring an ambush before they were extracted. Thus they had set up along a trail and were silently waiting when four NVA regulars in new uniforms came diddly-bopping down the trail with slung arms. These four looked just like they were out for a stroll in downtown Hanoi!
Trick-or-Treat! The blast of claymores and the roar of M-16s took all four of Charlie down. Billy had his own problems that day though because his M-16 had jammed yet again, and he was trying to clear the malfunction as his team searched the NVA for documents. Suddenly the unmistakable sound of an AK-47 on full auto sent the team diving off of the trail. Thinking quickly, Billy grabbed a new SKS and a bandoleer of ammo off of one of the dead bodies and ran with the rest of his team uphill towards the extraction LZ. The NVA were hot on their trail and firing bursts from their AK-47s at the Americans.
A deadly burst of fire from an unseen bunker hidden in the jungle on the left tore into Billy's best friend Dave and knocked him down in a bloody heap. Billy assaulted the bunker and a grenade ended that threat. Unfortunately it was to late for Dave. Others on the team slapped bandages on him in an attempt to stop the bleeding but it looked very bad. Urging the others to go on ahead and get Dave to the evac ‘copter, Billy elected to stay behind and delay "Nathaniel Victor".
For starters, he took the useless M-16 and placed it beside the trail with a grenade with a no-delay fuze under it. A minute later a satisfying BOOM told Billy that the M-16 had finally done some good.
With the NVA still hot on their trail, Billy chose a narrow place in a ravine, where he would have a good field of fire to slow down the pursuers. Firing controlled single shots with the SKS, he managed to down several gooks and bought precious time for the team as the NVA rallied. The enemy answered with several grenades but despite being hit by shrapnel, Billy took off again, stopping again and again, on the desperate run to the LZ, to engage the enemy. As he desperately slipped and slid through the mud and jungle more and more NVA joined the pursuit. Billy was receiving constant sniper fire from soldiers trying to flank him and those behind. Finally his luck ran out and a 7.62x39 bullet tore into his side. It felt like someone had burned his flesh with a cigarette lighter. Weakened and in pain, Billy fired the SKS back with deadly effect. It was hot in his hands but never missed a beat as Billy loaded in clip after clip. Several of the enemy felt the white heat of the SKS bullets and fell mortally wounded. Yet something was happening to Billy also - sick over what had happened to his friend and feeling the stress of war he felt something inside go out of him...
Billy's teammates heard the desperate battle behind them as they reached the extraction LZ. The Huey was already setting down, but they waited for Billy. Out of the smoke and fog of the jungle battle Billy finally emerged, and was pulled aboard the Huey as they made a hot extraction with 7.62 rounds smacking through the thin skin of the Huey. He was deathly pale and covered in blood, still clinging to the SKS, but it was the look on his face that scared them, liked he had seen the Grim Reaper. When told that Steve didn't make it, he just cried silently and held his friend's head in his lap on the flight back to Camp Eagle and the hospital, their blood commingling on the Huey's floor.
He never would tell his teammates what happened in the dire struggle that took place back in the jungle, or exactly how he came out alive, but the deaths of so many friends during his two tours obviously weighed on his mind.
Part 2 - The World When Billy went back to the ‘World' he took the SKS with him as a memento. He liked the heft of it, not to mention its reliability and accuracy. It was a rifle that had saved his life!
Years went by, some good others bad. Billy's wife had left him, and he was living in the old family ranch house up the canyon above his hometown in the West. Hard times had forced Billy to sell much of what was precious to him, including his hunting rifle, a Super Grade Model 70 .270 Winchester, but he still had the SKS and a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357 ‘Combat Magnum' revolver. There were the constant nightmares, and often an aching in his heart, when he wondered why he had been spared in ‘Nam when so many of his friends, that had so much promise, hadn't.
Lately Billy and run into other problems. It seems he had turned in a meth lab based in an old trailer, on public land near his house, to a shooting buddy, and ex-Desert Storm Ranger who was with the County Sheriff Department. A raid by the SWAT team had ended that source of pollution, but the so-called biker gang who ran the lab had been hassling him lately and things were getting uglier.
On this particular Halloween evening, Billy had just sat down to a lonely supper when he was disturbed by the roar of motorcycles in his front yard. Billy got that old "combat" feeling, and grabbed the Model 19 as he opened the door a crack to look outside.
The leader of the biker/doper gang, in a flurry of obscenities, told Billy that they had come to give Billy "his due." This outburst was punctuated by the blast of a shotgun, splintering a big hole in the front door. Billy took a couple of hasty shots with the revolver. The first shot ricocheted off a Harley, but the next hit the leader in the shoulder, the hollow point turning the shoulder into a gory mess. This was followed up by a fusillade of bullets striking the house, fired by the surprised gang in return. The situation obviously was tactically untenable, so Billy ran to the back bedroom and grabbed the SKS and a bandoleer of ammo hanging from a peg. He then jumped out the window and sprinted across the backyard and up the mountainside.
The angry buzzing of bullets going by his head told him that he had been spotted, so Billy turned around and fired five or six rounds to suppress the fire. This allowed Billy to make the cover of a rock outcropping. Billy saw smoke billowing from the house as the gang members advanced toward him. He took center aim at a guy carrying a sawed-off shotgun and carefully pulled the trigger sending a Russian bullet toward the bad guy. The hollow point dropped him like a rock. Billy next lined up on a guy firing at him with a Mini-14. Once again, a double-tap from the SKS sent the dude to Valhalla.
When you are out numbered and out gunned, movement is the best tactical survival possibility, so Billy ran further up the hill to prevent being flanked, stopping now and again to fire at the bikers. Fire, reload, fire. He ran ‘til he thought his lungs were on fire and his legs felt like they were made of lead. Not as young as when he was doing this in ‘Nam, he decided, but the old adrenalin buzz was still there.
A burning pain in his left side told him that he had been hit. One of the bad guys had a lucky hit when he sprayed the area with his 9mm Tec-9. Billy stopped behind a tree and fired a couple of rounds at the man, hitting him in the face. Billy quickly reloaded with a stripper clip and continued the fight. The SKS was hot in his hands. He could smell the hot steel and oil of the gun. Still, it fired every time, sending 122 grains of death to his enemies. Once again, the Simonov Carbine was equal to the task, and Bones was quickly lowering the odds.
The fight went on and on. Pale and bloody, Billy wondered if he was getting delirious because the leather clad dopers were starting to look like khaki uniformed NVA. He thought he could hear the voices of his Airborne Ranger buddies - the dead ones. Past and present had melted together . . .
Later that night, when a couple of shot-up lowlifes checked into the local ER, the Sheriffs Department began to investigate rumors of a big fight up in the hills. The morning of November 1st found them standing in front of the smoldering remains of the ranch house. Empty cases littered the area. Among them were steel cased 7.62x39mm and empty stripper clips. Dead bodies and blood trails scattered up the hillside spoke of a desperate battle. However, no sign was ever found of Billy Bones or his SKS.
Some say that he finally joined his comrades in the 101st who never made it back from ‘Nam. Other locals say that if you go up the canyon to the remains of an old burned out ranch house on Halloween night and listen closely, you can hear the sounds of distant ghostly yells. And sometimes, just maybe, you can hear the distinct boom of an SKS; although most will tell you its just thunder . . .
