Need a LZ

Steadfast · Post by **Steadfast** » November 26th, 2004, 11:58 am

Need a LZ

Interesting idea. On one of my 1st 5 missions. We had an interesting team. Ernie Eidem TL, Delores Barreto ATL, John Slattery and Steadfast. Both Ernie and Delores were Sgt.'s and John & I were P.F.C.'s. We had transversed our AO for 4 days and Ernie said this place was dead (meaning no enemy had been here in quite a long time). Ernie said we had another delemia. We had no exit LZ. Ernie said since it were a dead AO we were going to use our machette's to cut down the trees for the chopper to pick us up. He got on the horn and told the rear we were ready for outfil. We were not but now we had extra incentive to chop down the skinny fucken trees. It was a grassy area over grown with trees about 15 to 25 feet high. The trees were not thicker than 10". Chopping them was a noisy, sweaty, tiring, and imperative all at the same time. Being out in the middle of Charlie country wasn't the ideal thing to be chopping down trees and making a whole ruckus. If no one was in our AO, someone out there within a few klicks of us could hear us chopping, not with axes but machette's. Three of us hacked away while one stayed on guard and half the LZ was cleared (trees bent over from waist high). Ernie said the choppers would be here in 15 minutes. There was no way we were going to be able to use our machettes as we have worked on only half the LZ for 40 minutes. Ernie told us to put away out machette's and shoot the fucken trees down. Standing 5, 6 feet away from my first tree, firing at it, tight shot group, the tree being only 7" around went down with a little over 20 rounds. For me that was 1 plus mag. I looked over at the other guys and only saw one, who had shot down at least 3 trees already. I quickly moved on and shot down another 4 trees and could actually hear the rotor blades of the choppers in the distance. I do not remember the exact number of trees I killed that day but the LZ was big enough by the time the chopper arrived. Two of us each moved to one side of the chopper. It couldn't land but it was low enough for us to clammer aboard. As the chopper lifted up and we headed back to the base I looked down to see the LZ we personally cut disappear as we turned and headed home. Another uneventful mission.

Bell · Post by **Bell** » November 26th, 2004, 12:23 pm

Now that's funny. Shoot the fucking trees!!

RLTW
Bell

RRDTm3 · Post by **RRDTm3** » November 27th, 2004, 1:03 pm

You fucking tree killer...I AM CALLING GREEN PEACE on you, you sick sick fuck!

let me guess once you deros'd back you went hunting for bald eagles, baby seals and california condors?

Slowpoke · Post by **Slowpoke** » November 28th, 2004, 5:54 am

Oh, those poor unsuspecting trees, caught in the horror of war!

Great story there, Paul Bunyon!

Steadfast · Post by **Steadfast** » November 28th, 2004, 7:48 am

DoorGunner wrote:H8 use to ask me if I ever killed anyone in the war. My comment was I killed more tree line foliage with a 60 then agent orange.
Good one Ranger Steadfast

RRDTm3 wrote:You fucking tree killer...I AM CALLING GREEN PEACE on you, you sick sick fuck!

let me guess once you deros'd back you went hunting for bald eagles, baby seals and california condors?

Slowpoke wrote:Oh, those poor unsuspecting trees, caught in the horror of war!

Great story there, Paul Bunyon!

Doorgunner says:

My comment was I killed more tree line foliage with a 60 then agent orange. [end quote]

Maybe so Doorgunner but the truth of the matter is that ocasscionally, you were shooting the bad guys hiding in the tree line out of your sight. The enemy would generally hear that familar thump thump thump of the rotors pushing air and run to hide. So even though you may never know, I would like to think that a certain percentage of the time, your aim was true unseen.

Yeah guys, I did kill those trees. I confess.