CHAPTER 10
13 AUGUST 1970 STAGING
The moon was yellow, low on the horizon, just above the blackness of the mountains. Straight up was blue-black. Eighty-four men sat, leaned against their rucksacks, lay on the ground with the chill of the earth passing into their muscles and bones, eighty-four men trying to catch a few moments sleep, trying to have time pass without tiring them more than they were already tired. They lay quietly in the deep monsoon-carved gullies surrounding the landing strip, trying not to think, trying to sleep on the gravel and stone and hard clay of the ravines of the staging area. Twenty soldiers in this ravine; thirty in the next; twenty-four in the one across the landing strip. A few sat back-against-back on the tiny hard ridge dividing the ravines, sat smoking, t
