CHAPTER 17
Three hours before Cherry got his cherry busted, everything was peaceful, businesslike, ordinary. Atop and about the peak, at noon, the soldiers were doing their jobs and they were bored. The sun was high, the sky untainted. In the high canopy leaves caught the sun and a slight breeze and reflected the sun like glossy mirrors. Across the valley a small FAC observation Piper Cub buzzed. Closer by, two LOHs hummed and darted. Mist still cloaked the river below and the rumbling of occasional artillery rounds bursting on the western end of the Khe Ta Laou echoed and reverberated and rolled up upon the peak unnoticed.
1st Plt had regrouped after the morning patrols and most of the soldiers sat idly, some eating C-rat lunches, some writing letters, some cleaning weapons. No one was
