1967-1968, In the Iron Triangle, known as the delta, there in the heavy jungle of Viet Nam are many types of monkeys. There are small Spider Monkeys, some are Gibbons, brown and reddish fur, however some are all black, called "Howlers", for the noise make when ever they'ed spot us. They call out loudly "oooo! oooo!" and point towards us. These howls would echo very loud, and would carry for miles, and this would piss us off!
After all, we are either trying to sneak up on the Viet Cong, or recon patrolling without being seen! Some of the soldiers threw sticks or stones up at the monkeys, but the monkeys instead of being afraid and running away would throw something back at the soldiers. The monkeys if they didn't have something readily to throw back like branches or fruit, they would crap in their hand and throw the turds at you! And shit, they were accurate!
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From the central highlands to the DMZ, in areas known as the Rock pile, the monkies, no matter what they looked like or type, they were call "rock monkies." Slightly different from the Howlers or Gibbons, about 3 1/2 feet tall, but just a nasty.
This particular incident we were pulling security for Army Engineers who were doing land clearing operations for a new forward base camp in the A-Shau valley.
Our platoon leader, a Lt. Best from Hamburg, NY, was sitting in his jeep while his driver, Larry Christy, Chicago, a big Mountain of a man had been messing around behind the jeep, laughingly throwing rocks at the some of the largest rock monkeys I have ever seen!
They were about 60 yards away, were light brown to reddish brown in color, and about half the height of an American. Usually you'd see them sitting on their haunches and picking at themselves, and were active at night, though some reports indicate they trooped in the day as well, and were sometimes mistaken for patrols of North Vietnamese Regulars. Our troops would ambush them and add to our enemy body count.
Maybe they might be classified as chimps or small apes. I guess Christy thought it was funny getting the monkeys throwing rocks back at him. Suddenly, there was a loud thump of a sizable rock impacting Christy's big head!
As we were laughing, hooting, shouting, and jumping up and down at Christy's demise, the apes must of decided we deserve the same destiny, and began to throw rocks at us. Shit! These rock apes were accurate.
Deciding to join the fun, some of the other soldiers picked up some rocks and returned fire, the apes were more than happy to throw them back, and they threw a wicked fast ball!
When Christy came too, he didn't think it was funny anymore, for beside the headache, he had a cut on top of his head, accompanied with a large lump. and when getting to his feet, started hollering mixed curses, growls and various descriptive adjectives to the apes that had bonked him.
"Sir! Let me shoot these f--king apes!" whined Christy.
"At ease!", ordered Lt Best, laughing. "No one is firing a weapon at the apes.
When this rock throwing episode started, no one bothered telling PFC Jimmy Davis from Sweetwater, Tennessee, that he shouldn't be taking a nap in a fox hole within the firing range. Davis was there sleeping through all this noise, but he was tired since he had been on perimeter guard duty the night before.
This newly found rock throwing contest, as all games had some serious mistakes since it wasn't really thought out by the apes throwing rocks or the human idiots that were throwing them back.
One mistake, no one told Jimmy Davis what was happening and that Lt Best said there would be no shooting.
The ape's fatal mistake was hitting Jimmy Davis while he slept.
Davis upon being awoke from the sudden pain of the rocks hitting him, and thinking that an attack from the Viet Cong had started, jumped up screaming,
"incoming!"
Meanwhile grabbing his M-79 grenade launcher, he put a High Explosive round right in the middle of the apes.
Kaboom!!!!! All four rock apes disappear in a bloody rocky mist!
I guess the lesson here is don't mess with a sleepy Jimmy Davis
- The M79 can fire a wide variety of 40 mm rounds, including high explosive, ant- personnell, buckshot, flichette, and high illumination. The M406 40 mm HE (high explosive) grenades fired from the M79 travel at a muzzle velocity of 75 meters per second. The M406 contained enough explosive to produce over 300 fragments that travel at 1,524 meters per second within a lethal radius of 5 meters.-
© Copyright 2011 James J Alonzo All rights reserved.
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