Rudyard Kipling"
āWhen you're left wounded on Afganistan's plains and
the women come out to cut up what remains, Just roll to your rifle
and blow out your brains,
And go to your God like a soldierā
General Douglas MacArthur"
āWe are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.ā
āIt is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it.ā āOld soldiers never die; they just fade away.
āThe soldier, above all other people, prays for peace, for he must suffer and be the deepest wounds and scars of war.ā
āMay God have mercy upon my enemies, because I won't .ā āThe object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.
āNobody ever defended, there is only attack and attack and attack some more.
āIt is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
The Soldier stood and faced God
Which must always come to pass
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as bright as his brass
"Step forward you Soldier,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint."
I've had to work on Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep.
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep,
The Soldier squared his shoulders and said
And I never passed a cry for help
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fears.
If you've a place for me here,
Lord, It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand."
There was silence all around the throne
Where the saints had often trod
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you Soldier,
You've borne your burden well.
Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."
All of us were issued with a standard infantry rifle, a Belgian FN self- loading rifle 7.62 millimeter.It weighed ten and a half pounds. It had a wooden stock and butt with a metal plate. Boy, was it a very long rifle, especially when I had the bayonet attached, it was nearly as tall as me.
Right : A Self Loading Rifle cradled in determined arms can be devastating.
It could fire on automatic, but then it was not encouraged as you had to split it at the butt to enable you to push the safety catch to auto, therefore we always left it at semi automatic. The bullet feed was through a 20 round magazine. The breech block and itās parts were gas operated, one had to adjust the gas regulator to the correct sized hole to minimize stoppages. Itās sights could be ranged up to 600 meters. It was an awesome piece of equipment during that period of time.
The Vietnam War was at itā s height, the Americans were getting clobbered by the āgooksā. Their tactics, similar to our communist terrorists, was paying them back by putting a huge number of American youth in body bags. In return the Americans adopted from their wild west history great tactics about decimating Red Indians. They put into practice George Custerā s techniques, pacifying villages, body counts and massacres, made them look horrendously inept and an embarrassment to us, we who looked up to the good old US of A, the bulwark against communism, at the same time grudgingly admiring the weapons of destruction the Americans had at that time.
We had our own problems, communism in Malaysia was becoming active encouraged by the victories of their communist brethren in Vietnam. It had a profound impact on our training. All of us were serving by choice, we tried to excel in training as brutal as it was. The butt of the SLR(self-loading rifle) was quite often used as club against us by our beloved instructors, those blood thirsty mother fuckers had no qualms about drawing blood. Some scalps were split, my, did they bleed profusely. The first time we went to fire our weapons, we went to a 25 meter range, all of us were excited, at long last we were going to fire a weapon. We were lined up in details of five, the details were lined up on the firing point, we were like virgins, nervous, breathless wanting to do well. All the weeks of dry runs towards this day when were finally going to use our āwivesā.
The command rang out, āDetail to the firing point advance, in the lying unsupported position with a five round magazine load, Action! On your own time go on.ā I placed my cheeks firmly against the butt, aligning the sights on the center bottom base of a white patch on the target, I wrapped my fore finger firmly around the trigger and gently squeezed. I felt the bullet leave the muzzle and the quick recoil, I let loose the remaining four rounds. We inspected weapons and approached the targets at a run.
The instructor was staring at a group size measuring about twenty millimeters. The grouping wasnāt in the center of the target. At that time my knowledge on sights was limited to peering through them. The instructor took the weapon from me. I was already preparing myself for a nasty butt stroke, instead he looked at the sights, made some adjustments and said, "Donāt let anyone call you four eyes ever again You have a very good group size, I have made some adjustments I want you to fire again Use the same technique, this time you will hit the spot you are aiming at.ā I responded, āThanks sargeā. Continued here...
