Bloods Read Online Free PDF Page B

school for wearing an earring. But I felt in this small way I carryon the African tradition. I would go in the Army wearing the mark of the African warriors I descend from.
    I did my basic and my AIT at Fort Leonardwood, Missouri. “Lost in the Woods,” yeah. Trained for combat engineer to build bridges, mountain roads. But we didn’t build too many bridges. Cleared a lot of LZs. Did a lot of demolition work.
    I was sent to An Khe, 8th Engineers Battalion, and attached to the 1st of the 9th of the Cav. It was in February, after the first battle of the Ia Drang Valley, when 300 Cav troops got wiped out in the first real fight anybody had with the NVA. I was one of those replacements.
    We probed for mines, blew up mines, disarmed and blew up booby traps. If you saw a trip wire, you could take a look at what was happening. You could see where the booby trap was, then throw a grenade at the beginning of the booby trap. Or shoot up the trail to make ’em go off. The land mines, ones you had to dig up, was the big problem, ’cause they could have another one planted somewhere next to it.
    And you had to worry about crimping right and taking your time. You squeeze the blasting cap and the fuse together so they won’t come apart. Crimping, right. But if you don’t crimp right, like an inch high from the bottom of the cap, it will blow you up. And you can’t be rushed by some second lieutenant, telling you, “Hurry up, hurry up, so we can move on.” If you rush, something wrong would happen. We lost three guys from rushing or crimping wrong.
    One time I had to get a guy off a mine. It looked like it was impossible.
    This infantry unit was on a little trail. west of Pleiku, makin’ a sweep towards the Ia Drang Valley. This white dude had stepped on a mine. And knew it. He felt the plunger go down. Everybody moved away from him, about 20 meters. So they called for the engineers, and somebody asked for Light Bulb.
    I have a nickname from the streets of East St. Louis. Light Bulb. Came from a friend of mine when we were growing up, ’cause he said I was always full of ideas.
    When I got there on the chopper, he’s been standin’ there for over an hour. He really wasn’t in any panic. Hewas very calm. He knew if he alleviated any of the pressure, both of us would have got destroyed.
    I dug all around the mine with my bayonet and found out that it was a Bouncin’ Betty. I told him I was gonna try to diffuse it. But the three-prong primer on the Bouncin’ Betty had gotten in between the cleats on his jungle boots, so there wasn’t any way I could deal with it. So I said let’s see if we could kind of change the pressure by him takin’ his foot out of his boot and me keepin’ the pressure by holding his boot down. That way he could get out uninjured. But when he started doin’ that, I thought I was seein’ the plunger rise, so I told him to stop.
    I guess maybe I’d been working with him for maybe an hour now.
    Then I got the idea. I knew when the plunger would depress, the Bouncin’ Betty would bounce up about 3 feet and then explode. So I got the other members of his team together, and I tied a rope around his waist. And everybody, including me, moved off about 20 yards from the mine and him. And when I counted to three, everyone would pull on the rope and snatch him about 15 feet off the mine. And it would bounce up its 3 feet and then explode. And it did that. And the only damage that he received was the heel of his jungle boot was blown off. No damage to him.
    This was somethin’ that they never taught us in school.
    This guy thanked me for saving his life and the life of his squad. And whenever we were back in base camp, I would always go with them. And since a platoon would always carry three or four combat engineers with them in the bush, I would always go with them.
    When I came to Vietnam, I thought we were helping another country to develop a nation. About three or four months later I found out that