MILES TO VIETNAM 04.FULL BLOODY CIRCLE

FULL BLOODY CIRCLE Miles to Vietnam Book 4 A Novel By William Peter Grasso Kindle Edition Copyright © 2023 Grasso Joint Revocable Trust All rights reserved Cover design by Alyson Aversa Kindle Edition License Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. FULL BLOODY CIRCLE is a work of historical fiction, not a history textbook. Events that are common historical knowledge may not occur at their actual point in time or may not occur at all. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales or to living persons is purely coincidental. The designation of military units may be actual or fictitious. Novels By William Peter Grasso Miles To Vietnam Butter Bar, Book 1 Reports Of Their Demise, Book 2 Forever And A Wake-Up, Book 3 Full Bloody Circle, Book 4 Jock Miles-Moon Brothers Korean War Story Combat Ineffective, Book 1 Combat Reckoning, Book 2 COMBAT: Parallel Lines, Book 3 COMBAT: Magic Bullet, Book 4 Moon Brothers WWII Adventure Series Moon Above, Moon Below, Book 1 Fortress Falling, Book 2 Our Ally, Our Enemy, Book 3 This Fog of Peace, Book 4 Jock Miles WW2 Adventure Series Long Walk to the Sun, Book 1 Operation Long Jump, Book 2 Operation Easy Street, Book 3 Operation Blind Spot, Book 4 Operation Fishwrapper, Book 5 World War II Standalone Novels Unpunished East Wind Returns Dedication To the artillerymen: the cannon-cockers Knights of the King of Battle Their value, in the words of Kipling: The guns, thank God, the guns Author’s Note To those of my generation, the Vietnam War was a transformational waypoint in our lives, whether one served in that conflict or not. To most who answered their country’s call and made that trip to the other side of the world, it was a period of confusion, contradiction, and frustration. In no way does the fictional story presented here mean to denigrate the hardships and sacrifices of the individual American soldiers, marines, airmen, and sailors forced to fight a war they—and often their commanders—did not understand. Dialogue often uses terms deemed derogatory for people of various Asian ethnicities, African Americans, and other nationalities. The use of those terms by the author serves no other intent than to accurately represent the vocabulary of military personnel in the 1960s. It would take a host of maps to fully depict the locations and battles visited in this novel. Since it focuses on the exploits of fictional characters and doesn’t intend to be a history textbook, I’ve chosen to include no maps. Those readers who wish to put the fictional action into a geographic context can visit a number of online sources. Here is a helpful link: Vietnam War Maps TABLE OF CONTENTS Novels by William Peter Grasso Copyright Author’s Note Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Upcoming Releases About the Author More Novels by William Peter Grasso Chapter One A Shau Valley, Republic of Vietnam Fire Support Base Signal Hill 22 April 1968 First Lieutenant Jif Miles, US Army, hoped he wasn’t watching another helicopter resupply mission on the cusp of failure. He told Captain Knapp, his battery commander, “I’m not sure those pilots can even see us, sir. I hope to bloody hell there’s still enough light to do the drop.” There was a good reason for his uneasiness; it was already pitch dark on the valley floor below. But there was something he and the captain couldn’t know: on this lofty peak called Signal Hill, there was still enough twilight for the pilots of the CH-54 Skycrane heavy-lift helicopter to see the layout of Charlie Battery, their artillery unit. The mountain’s designation hadn’t been a random pick; there was a radio station collocated there that relayed communications from combat units along the A Shau Valley to 1st Cavalry Division’s base at Camp Evans some twenty miles to the northeast. Even with the small margin of visibility, the Skycrane’s task was a challenging one. Like all the helicopters that had serviced the firebase since its inception three days ago, the massive ship struggled to hover in the thinner air at 5,000 feet above sea level. Buffeted by swirling mountain gusts, the big chopper rocked and rolled as she crept toward the peak. The pallet of ammunition that hung on slings beneath her swayed and twirled menacingly, its seven-ton mass threatening to smash into men and equipment on the firebase below. Captain Knapp was anxious enough to pull the plug on the delivery. “We’ve got to wave her off,” he screeched over the roar of the Crane. “If that stuff smacks the ground and blows up, we’re all going to buy it.” “We really need that ammo, sir,” Jif replied, just as concerned but not quite as fatalistic. “Maybe we hold off a second on that wave-off?” Knapp didn’t reply. He was already running toward the LZ, his arms flailing over his head in the abort signal. It was wasted effort; the pilots didn’t see his shadowy figure. They were fixated on the guidance from the lighted wands of the signalman, who couldn’t hear the captain shouting to him over the