The Bassi Group, Page 2

  Chapter 2

  The favor

  Although Lt. Keepers had only been in country six months, he strutted around and acted like he was the cock of the walk. Mike told Vinny that he would fix the problem the next time they went on patrol. Three days later while on patrol with squad leader Lt. Keepers, Mike helped Lt. Keepers to achieve two of his dreams.

  1. He wanted to spend his life as a career officer in the Army.

  2. He wanted to make the front page of his home town newspaper.

  Unfortunately for 2nd Lt. Keepers there were a couple small snags.

  Unfortunate snag number 1, was that both his career and life would be very, very short. He was shot and killed while he was angrily cursing and looking at his map attempting to locate the squad’s position on the map he was holding… he was lost. When the shot that killed Lt. Keepers was fired everyone hit the dirt and randomly started firing into the surrounding jungle. No one saw Mike lowering his M14 or change the magazine containing the modified ammunition.

  Using the experience and techniques he had learned in the machine shop, Mike had carefully hollowed the points and meticulously notched the bullets in a manner that would cause them not to just mushroom but also to fragment. It caused enough damage that it was impossible to pin point the direction or even the caliber of shot that literally blew Keepers head off.

  Unfortunate snag number 2, the front page newspaper article was 2nd Lt. Keeper’s death notice. The newspaper article about Lt. Keepers stated that he was killed in an ambush while trying to pin point the exact location of the Fire Base to get his squad back to Base and safety. The article stated that 2nd Lieutenant Keepers had died a hero’s death.

  What the article didn’t say was that all the Lt. would have had to do was ask if anyone knew where they were. But he would never have lowered himself to ask for an enlisted man’s help. After the Lt. was shot, Corporal Quentin had led everyone the half mile back to base camp. At the individual debriefings it was determined that despite suspicious circumstances, based on individual squad member's testimony Lt. Keepers death occurred in an ambush. It was placed in the records that the Lt. was killed by hostile fire during an ambush. It seemed that because of his cockiness and attitude of entitlement, the Lt. was universally disliked. Although it was never officially acknowledged, the Lt’s fellow squad leaders had a pool going on about how long he would last before he was “fragged”. Captain Davenport won that pool. Lt. Keepers old squad was surprised by a keg of “BUD” that showed up in the squads platoon area a week after Keepers died in the ambush.

  The next squad, leader 2nd Lt. Keith Mars was also an ROTC officer. But he was fair and even handed in his treatment of all squad members and the squad took good care of him. Lt. Mars survived his tour of duty, rotated out of country and received his promotion to 1st Lt.

  When Vinny’s eighteen month tour of duty ended he returned to the “World” for discharge and Mike figured he would never see him again. Mike lamented to Vinny that his "wake up" was still a month away. A month later, Mike caught a “freedom bird” to the “Land of the big PX” himself.